Nokia expands 5G presence in Baltics

Elisa Estonia has agreed a nationwide 5G RAN deployment with Nokia, who will replace the country’s existing 4G infrastructure in a five-year deal with deployment expected to roll out following the completion of Estonia’s spectrum auction in early 2022.

Andrus Hiiepuu, CEO at Elisa Estonia, said: “We have huge ambitions for providing state-of-the-art entertainment and communications services to our customers underpinned by a 5G network.

“Nokia is our trusted partner for this and will help us to deliver a sustainable 5G business. Their technology and innovation will help us to differentiate in the market and I look forward to working closely with them on this project.”

In a separate deal, Nokia has agreed to extend its partnership with Tele2 and will provide equipment from its latest ReefShark System on Chip-powered AirScale equipment portfolio to modernise Tele2’s radio network that covers each of the Baltic states.

Tele2 has previously acquired 5G spectrum in the 3.5 GHz band and the 700 MHz spectrum in Latvia and the company said it would roll-out the AirScale RAN equipment once it had “acquired sufficient spectrum” from auctions for both low and high band frequencies” in Estonia and Lithuania this year.