Sep 15, 2011 12:46 PM CET

CMD2011 Summaries: Joachim Horn

Right Technology at the Right Point of Time

Tele2 has a diverse infrastructure – ranging from all network standards in Sweden to 2G in Russia – providing us with many opportunities. Fixed networks help us leverage synergies and decrease costs, but we will also need to build LTE for the future.

Our frequency portfolio has great coverage and our countries are well positioned, not the least as net neutrality approaches in different countries.

Remember that mobile data evolution is progressing for ALL standards. GSM is the most mature standard, not the standard for the future, but it will still be there for the coming years. In Sweden, for example, 2G has grown by more than 5x in the last year.

Data consumption grows substantially, mainly driven by 3G. That requires us also to upgrade our networks. The industry is helping us, and all suppliers have roadmaps for continuous evolution of peak data rates ahead (HSPA).

LTE, long term evolution offers improved customer experience, scale and economy. Latency difference between 3G and LTE is 87%. We must of course be where the potential is, and the potential for LTE is nearly unlimited. LTE will allow us to reach much higher efficiencies.

Why do we have so many spectrums? Low spectrum is very important for coverage. 2.6 GHz compared to 800 MHz has a huge difference in coverage area. But you still need higher spectrums in order to be able to off-load traffic from the lower ones.

Tele2’s advantage is that we can chose network at the right point of time. We can make that choice.

Also, as we move forward on the network side, we must momentarily refresh our IT-infrastructure in order to leverage group synergies.