Samsung has announced the commercial availability of its 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) dongle in Sweden and Norway. TeliaSonera begins offering commercial Samsung LTE dongles (Model Name: GT-B3710) for customers in Stockholm, Sweden and in Oslo, Norway. The introduction of the commercial dongle follows the announcement in October about TeliaSonera’s selection of Samsung as its 4G device provider.
Customers in Sweden and Norway can now enjoy maximum download speeds of 100 Mbps in 4G, which is ten times faster than the speed of the current ‘Turbo 3G’ service. TeliaSonera’s LTE service is the world’s first commercialization and will open up new possibilities for customers to enjoy the benefits of high-speed data service on their laptops, such as advanced web TV broadcasting, online gaming and web conferencing.
Samsung’s LTE dongle (Model name: GT-B3710) can be connected to a laptop computer or other portable devices via USB. The dongle incorporates Samsung’s in-house developed LTE modem chip, branded Kalmia, and supports 2.6GHz band for LTE service. Samsung’s LTE solution is fully compliant with the latest 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) LTE Release 8 (Rel-8) standard. Samsung will provide an updated version of USB dongle, which offers backward compatibility to LTE, HSPA, and EDGE service, in the first half of 2010.
TeliaSonera has three nation wide 4G/LTE licenses; in Sweden, Norway and also recently in Finland. The network roll out is in progress to offer 4G to Sweden’s and Norway’s largest cities.
