Finnish start-up claims first commercial 450MHz LTE network

Finnish start-up Ukkoverkot has launched what it says is the world’s first commercial 450MHz LTE data network. The mobile operator claimed the Ukko Mobile network covers 99.9% of Finland’s population.

The firm said the network is already being used by many of the country’s companies including the national railway service provider VR. “The Ukko Mobile network offers a reliable connection for the needs of businesses and government organisations even outside of towns and metropolitan areas,” Ukkoverkot CEO Antti Pellinen said.

“Our network’s unbeatable coverage combined with the very low latency of new LTE technology offers an extremely good user experience, and enables remote working across Finland.”

Ukko Mobile is purely a data network, and the operator said it is well suited for use by public authorities and the emergency services, as well as for card payment traffic and other back-office systems at mass events.

Finland is a relatively large country, and although the southern parts are fairly densely populated, there are plenty of areas with very low populations. “We are offering value especially to companies working on the field,” Pellinen said.

“These days almost all industries use electronic work orders, reporting and cloud services. The Ukko Mobile network quickly creates significant cost savings to forestry machine companies for example as a data connection is available right there on the field of work.”

Ukkoverkot began operation earlier this year, and it is an independent company only operating in Finland. It claims to be a market leader in the 450MHz LTE network arena, and it currently holds the only Finnish licence for the said bandwidth. In a country like Finland where in many places houses are few and far between it makes sense to invest in technologies taking advantage of the far reaching lower bandwidths rather than build masts all over the place.