Telenor opens Norway’s first 5G service

Aiming to take advantage of its work over the past couple of years in Norway, Telenor has taken the country into the world’s 5G community.

Telenor said that it has focused for the past two years on learning as much as possible about the qualities of the new mobile network before making it available to the public, adding that this work was done to ensure that customers receive optimal 5G quality.

The operator opened Scandinavia’s first 5G pilot in Kongsberg on 8 November 2018, and subsequently launched Scandinavia’s largest 5G pilot in Elverum on 26 September 2019.

In addition, Telenor announced pilots in nine further locations across the country and conducted Norway’s first video call over 5G. These included introducing the world’s northernmost 5G pilot on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard.

Telenor’s 5G network was commercially launched on 13 March 2020, and customers with a 5G device can now connect to the next-generation mobile network in nine different locations in Norway.

The company will start development of 5G in Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger and Sandnes. The new mobile network will open in these cities during 2020, with Telenor adding that it has built 5G in Trondheim in collaboration with Ericsson.

“Telenor is proud to be the first mobile operator to launch a commercial 5G network in Norway, as we have worked tirelessly to stay at the forefront of the 5G development,” said Telenor Group president and CEO Sigve Brekke.

“By bringing Norway into a new technological age, today’s opening marks another milestone in Telenor’s 165-year-long history. We expect 5G to be the key driver of transformation in this decade, and we are very much looking forward to continuing the roll-out of 5G to our customers.”

Telenor Norway CEO Petter-Børre Furberg said: “This is a day we have been looking forward to for a long time. We launched our first 5G pilot as early as 2018, and since then we have been experimenting and exploring, trying to learn as much as we possibly can.

“Today, we are not only opening our 5G network in the city of Trondheim, we are also opening the very first commercial 5G network in Norway. In addition, we are making 5G commercially available in all locations where we, until now, have been running tests. As of today, Telenor customers with a 5G device will at these locations be able to connect to the mobile network of the future.”

Now that the 5G network has officially opened, Telenor is emphasising that this is just the beginning of what is yet to come.

“We have worked hard to become the first mobile operator in Norway to open the 5G network, and are now fully focused on our continued plans. During 2021, we will upgrade close to 2,000 base stations, while a total of 8,500 base stations will be upgraded in the next four to five years,” Furberg added.