It was announced today in a press conference that the first commercial LTE network is launched in Stockholm, Sweden and Oslo, Norway. The announcement brings no surprise since TeliaSonera and Ericsson have been working together on the LTE development project since 2008, aiming to launch the service commercially in 2010. Similar project was ongoing in Oslo, however with the Chinese manufacturer Huawei. The first milestone in the project was the LTE site launched in central Stockholm in May 2009.
Telia promises data rates of 50 Mbps to start with are expect to double as the network gets optimized. From the network point of view, it looks promising and today’s launch will increase the trust factor in LTE and we will see even more contracts from other operators in the world.
Note that many have already planned the rollout of LTE sometime in 2010, however many are still satisfied with the 21 Mbps that their Turbo 3G networks (HSDPA) can offer.
A disadvantage with this early launch is however on the terminal side. The LTE modems available in Scandinavia are provided by Samsung but doesn’t support any other technology. This means, if the user is on the run there will be spots and areas that LTE doesn’t cover even within the surf zone. The modems that are expected to come in 2010 will support all three technologies EDGE, HSPA and LTE (2G, 3G and 4G) which will allow a smooth handover between the different networks, thus a better mobile surfing experience.
TeliaSonera has made a nice package bait to lock as many subscriber as possible. I have highlighted few points:

4 Skr/month until 1st July 2010 and then ordinary price 600 Skr/month
Setup fee 0 Skr (ord 250 Skr)
12 month contract period
4G modem 0 Skr (ord 3495 Skr)
Possibility to loan Turbo 3G+ modem until 1st July
Two Sim cards included, one for each modem
Exchanging the 4G modem with the multi modem that supports 2G/3G/4G without extra costs (expected in markets Q2 2010)