Telia upgrades the mobile network throughout Sweden – Breakthrough for mobile data services requires more capacity

The number of data service users in Telia’s mobile network almost doubled during 2005 from just under 800,000 to approximately 1.4 million. Data traffic increased by 300 percent. In order to prepare for the future, Telia is now starting comprehensive upgrades of its network.

Business customers represent the largest portion of the traffic, but consumers’ use is rising steadily. Telia already has today’s best mobile network for data traffic (GPRS) in Sweden. The capacity will be further improved so customers will easily be able to e-mail, listen to music and watch TV in their mobiles without interruption. – Mobile data services had its breakthrough last year among both businesses and consumers. Our customers have seriously started to use mobile services and we are now upgrading our mobile network in order to meet the increased demand, says Marie Ehrling, President for TeliaSonera Sweden. The upgrade of the mobile network will take place gradually throughout the country and is estimated to be completed in approximately one month. PC cards increase The percentage of traffic attributable to businesses comes increasingly from services such as Telia Connect, where the user has a PC card in their computer that provides wireless connection to the business’s intranet and the Internet. This type of traffic has increased in six months from 20 to 30 percent of the total mobile data traffic. More customer-oriented messaging services such as visual, audio and text messaging and newer services such as TV, news and weather are also increasingly driving data traffic. Data services are not only available in every pocket – they are also being used. To make it easier for customers, Telia has gathered services on its mobile portal Telia Surfport, which works on more than 200 mobile telephone models. www.telia.se/surfport. The usage of mobile data services is measured by the used volume of GPRS data traffic. The data above is taken from December 2004, December 2005 and June 2005. _______________________________________________ Additional information for journalists is available from: TeliaSonera Sweden’s Press Office, tel. +46 (0)20-77 58 30