Telenor Hungary completes Hipernet ahead of schedule

After Budapest and Transdanubia, the network was swapped also in East Hungary. As a result, Telenor Hipernet is now Hungary’s most extensive mobile Internet network with the highest theoretical peak download speed.

“Telenor is committed to providing the best customer experience. Therefore, we wanted to develop the best quality and fastest mobile Internet network possible. I am proud that we could deliver the project ahead of schedule and take Hipernet to all settlements with a 3G network before Christmas. The past few months saw some 200,000 new subscribers joining Telenor’s mobile Internet network and now every second Telenor customer buys a smartphone – this is the best feedback we can get,” said Christopher Laska, CEO of Telenor Hungary.

Close correlation between the adoption of mobile Internet and GDP growth

In his presentation, Laska stressed that mobile Internet is about economic growth and better life quality. He said there is a close correlation between the adoption of mobile Internet and GDP growth which is confirmed also by independent research results.

“Making Hipernet available all over the country is a great step on the road to increasing Internet penetration and bridging the digital divide for underdeveloped regions. I am confident that these results will also improve Hungary’s competitiveness in the long run. Besides this, since 2005, our company has contributed to Hungary’s growth with investment projects worth HUF 127.9 bn, taxes of HUF 66.7 bn2 and frequency fees of HUF 31.1 bn,” said Christopher Laska, CEO of Telenor Hungary.

Telenor Hungary’s network modernization programme

In Hungary the number of mobile Internet subscriptions has been on the rise and is close to 2 million. Smartphones have also been adopted at a very fast pace. Currently, nearly 1 million Hungarians use a smartphone. In order to satisfy the growing demand for mobile internet Telenor Hungary introduced its network modernization project in January 2011.

Under its network modernization programme, Telenor has swapped 2,100 base stations and installed 200 new base stations since January 2011. The Hipernet service is now available in 672 settlements across Hungary. In settlements covered by the 3G network, customers can use mobile Internet with a theoretical peak download speed of 42 Mbps. In addition, Telenor has made 53 of its 2G base stations capable of providing Hipernet services to increase the availability of faster data transmission better aligned to today’s needs.

“Based on official statistics, the data traffic generated by Telenor customers increased 1.5 times in the past few months and Telenor customers traffic by far the largest amount of data on their mobile devices. Our network can now support these needs in excellent quality as the network modernization programme increased base stations’ capacity. As a result, we provide customers with higher quality and more reliable service. In the months to come, we will focus on fine-tuning the network and adding new base stations to improve indoor coverage and connect more areas to the 3G network,” said József Huszlicska, Chief Technology Officer of Telenor Hungary.