March 1, 2010 – Last week EMT made the first LTE data transmission connection and launched Estonia’s first LTE test network.

March 1, 2010 – Last week EMT made the first LTE data transmission connection and launched Estonia’s first LTE test network.

“As 4G network testing was successful, Estonian mobile customers will soon be able to use 4G commercial services”, said Valdo Kalm, CEO of EMT. “According to our knowledge, this is the first 4G test network in Eastern Europe and one of the first in the world.”

Tõnu Grünberg, Director of Development and Technology of EMT noted that 4G stands foremost for advancement of mobile internet. “Perhaps we can not foresee all possibilities that 4G will offer, but mobile communication will certainly become more interactive and thus areas of mobile usage will broaden greatly”.

According to Tõnu Grünberg, EMT will launch 4G commercially when there is complete technical readiness to offer high quality 4G services and allocation of 4G commercial licenses is completed. “Also, easy availability of 4G consumer devices must be considered.”

LTE devices are supplied by Ericsson. Ericsson is the key supplier of fourth generation mobile network devices for the whole TeliaSonera group, to which EMT belongs. Ericsson has already signed 4G agreements with several major mobile operators like Verizon and MetroPCS in the United States and NTT DoCoMo in Japan. 4G devices will be manufactured at Ericsson factory in Tallinn.

Samsung modem is used in EMT 4G test environment as the end user device.

As the first operator in the world, TeliaSonera launched 4G services to customers in Stockholm and Oslo at the end of 2009. TeliaSonera hopes that the 4G network roll-out will continue in 2010 to Sweden’s 25 largest cities and to Norway’s four largest cities.