With the aim to become the first operators in the world to launch 4G, TeliaSonera has signed contracts with Ericson and Huawei and by 2010; the 4G network would be rolled out commercially.

It won't be wrong to say that this contract has made an important step in the evolution of TeliaSonera to the next generation network.

For the initial 4G City network in Stockholm, Ericson has been chosen by TeliaSonera, while for the initial 4G City network in Oslo, Huawei has been selected. Furthermore, it has also been learnt that the evaluation of suppliers for its 4G networks in the Nordic and Baltic countries are said to be on.

The 3GPP standards for long term evolution (LTE) radio technology and system architecture evolution (SAE) core technology are what the 4G / LTE system is based upon, which would be supplied by Ericsson and Huawei.

An environmental friendly end-to-end LTE solution would be provided by them including LTE base stations, core network and operating support system and also offer services including network design, implementation, systems integration and support.

It should be noted here that telecommunication services are provided by TeliaSonera in the Nordic and Baltic countries, in Spain and the emerging markets of Eurasia, including Russia and Turkey, with a subscriber base of approximately 115 million. The telecommunications services including packaging and carrying content including sound, images, data, information, transactions and entertainment are also supplied by it.

"4G will offer customers a whole new mobility experience using mobile broadband services. It will be a joy connecting to services demanding large data volumes or fast data traffic. 4G will be suitable for media and interactive services for which timing on the second is essential," said TeliaSonera via a statement.

Lars Klasson, senior vice president and CTO, mobility services, TeliaSonera concluded, "We have chosen Ericsson to deliver the initial 4G City network in Stockholm and Huawei for the initial 4G City network in Oslo."