Network Upgrade: Telia Company rolls out 500 MbPs 4.5G in Lithuania

Telia has installed 4.5G base stations of the latest mobile technology in the five biggest cities in Lithuania. The upgrade will allow users to download data at up to 500 Mb/s.

Telia (then Omnitel) was the first company in the Baltics and one of the first companies in the world to implement 4.5G, or LTE Advanced Pro, in the capital Vilnius in February last year. Now, Telia has 4.5G base stations operating not only in Vilnius, but also in Kaunas, Klaipėda, Šiauliai, and Panevėžys.

Three times faster

In major cities in Lithuania, data is transmitted via the new 4.5G connection by combining three or four frequency bands instead of two, four-channel transmission technology (4x4 MIMO), and the newest signal encoding technologies (256QAM). Thus, the transfer speed of mobile data increases up to three times and there is less network delay than when current technologies are used.

Not just speed

Andrius Šemeškevičius, CTO at Telia in Lithuania, explains that the communication of the future that is being created today will be more than just faster access.

“Current technologies that help people to stay in touch will soon become a part of 5G and connect everything, that is, people, services, and things, to one network. 5G communication will not be a revolution, but rather an evolution of current technology,” he says.

Evolution to 5G

The standardisation and the development of 5G is still ongoing and tests of 5G technology are underway in several parts around the world. Telia and Ericsson performed the first field trial in Europe in October 2016.