On November 15, Telenor and Tele2 launched LTE services in Sweden, almost a year after Telia. This means that Sweden, after becoming the first country in the world with commercial LTE services late last year, is now the most competitive LTE market, with three operators.

 

The only wireless operator that remains outside the Swedish LTE market and is betting on HSPA+ despite having secured LTE spectrum is 3. Another interesting aspect of the Swedish LTE market is the fact that Telenor and Tele2 are using the same network to deliver their LTE services.

 

They created a joint venture, Net4Mobility, to deploy their LTE radio access network and handle operations; Net4Mobility selected Huawei as sole supplier. Service differentiation between the two operators could be a challenge with this strategy, but pricing and marketing can still be key differentiators between the partners.

 

In late 2009, TeliaSonera was the first operator in the world to launch commercial LTE services in Stockholm in Sweden (and in Oslo, Norway).

 

The time has now come for increased competition, with three operators in Sweden now offering LTE services as their 4G weapon of choice. This is currently a unique situation worldwide, at least in developed economies. Uzbekistan is reported to have two competing LTE services available. The US and Germany should be the next developed countries to have LTE competition among several providers.

 

Introducing LTE services almost a year after the incumbent, Tele2 and Telenor could have been at a major disadvantage. However, Telia’s early LTE offering was more like a large commercial pilot than a full launch.