Telia kicks off 5G era in Helsinki, Launches Pre-Commercial 5G Network

5G has come to Helsinki. Telia Company has launched a pre-commercial 5G network in the city center and the goal is to start commercial services in the beginning of next year.

Telia Company’s 5G network which operates on test frequencies issued by the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority was launched on September 5 at the Telia 5G Arena in Helsinki in the presence of Johan Dennelind, President and CEO of Telia Company, who kept his promise from 2016 to launch 5G in Helsinki in 2018.

The first base stations are now operational in Helsinki, and the first phase of the roll-out will continue during the autumn. Telia Company’s 5G network operates on test frequencies issued by the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority.

Full-scale commercial operation will be possible in 2019, after the 3,5 GHz 5G frequency auction has been conducted in Finland. 5G growth is also dependent on availability of standard-compliant 5G devices, like modems, tablets and mobile phones by terminal manufacturers.

“For two years we have prepared for 5G with demos and trials. We set up the 5G Finland cooperation network to create and pilot 5G services with our partners, and now we can continue exploring the possibilities of 5G in a real live network”, says Jari Collin, CTO at Telia Finland.

Telia Company’s 5G program has proceeded to a point where all 5G network components are available, from 3GPP specification-based radio access to high capacity IP networks, virtualized core and the massive computing capacity offered by Telia Helsinki Data Center.

Telia Company has partnered with Nokia for the introduction of 5G in Finland. “We are pleased to begin the deployment of the first 5G base stations in Finland – the Nokia AirScale radio access - and we will continue working with Telia Company to identify the technologies and services that meet the demands of consumers and industries in the 5G era,” says Jan Lindgren, Head of Telia Customer Team at Nokia.

Network Evolution to 5G

5G is expected to improve the throughput of mobile networks by more than 20 times and the capacity up to hundred times compared to current networks.

The revolutionary aspect is the ability to connect a huge number of devices connected to the network and the possibility to enable services that require ultra-low latency and extreme reliability. 5G will enable for example autonomous driving, new concepts in e-learning and e-health and new types of critical industrial processes.