Nokia to Expand Elisa's Networks, Bring High Data Speeds to 3G

HELSINKI, Finland - Nokia Connection 2005, June 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Finnish telecom operator Elisa and Nokia have signed a frame agreement for the expansion of Elisa's second and third generation mobile networks in Finland and Estonia. The agreement is an extension to the two companies' frame agreement signed in 2001.

Under the agreement, Nokia will supply Elisa with 2G and 3G radio network solutions including the Nokia High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) solution as well as expansions to Elisa's circuit core and packet core networks. Nokia continues as the main supplier of Elisa's mobile network infrastructure. In addition, the two companies have agreed to trial IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) to drive forward mobile and fixed network service convergence.

The Nokia HSDPA solution is a software upgrade to the 3G network with which data speeds will go up to 1-2 Mbps in the first phase.

"With HSDPA, Elisa will be able to offer its customers even higher data speeds to all services including Internet and Corporate Accesses," said Jukka Vetelasuo, Executive Vice President, Elisa Corporation. "With the IMS trial we're eager to see how it can help us expand our service offering with new multimedia applications."

"We are very happy to continue our long-term cooperation with Elisa and to supply them with latest radio network technology solutions. Nokia sees HSDPA technology as the natural next step on the evolution path towards more advanced networks," said Peter Kuhne, Vice President, North-West Europe Customer Business Team, Networks, Nokia. "We are also happy to be cooperating with Elisa in driving the development of converged services and a unified core network solution."

IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), defined by 3G standardization project 3GPP, enables packet based multimedia communication services for both mobile and fixed networks. Early IP Multimedia services include Push to talk, Video Sharing and Voice over IP (VoIP). IMS is the access independent service machinery for a wide range of access networks including GSM/EDGE, WCDMA, HSDPA, DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) and Wireless LAN. IP Multimedia is being adopted by both mobile and fixed network operators as the basis for future networks.

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