TeliaSonera gears up to ship first dual-mode LTE / 3G USB WWAN modem
By Darren Murph 
posted June 30th 2010 7:31AM
posted June 30th 2010 7:31AM
Care about Samsung's GT-B3730? Probably not... but what if we told you that that very device is the planet's first commercially available dual-mode LTE / 3G WWAN modem? Now that we've got your attention, you may be interested in knowing that overseas operator TeliaSonera -- hailed as the first carrier on the planet to fire up an LTE network and make it available to Joe and Jane last year -- is just about ready to start shipping the aforesaid Samsung. As of now, the only way to hop onto their LTE superhighway is with a 4G-only modem, and while it had promised a two-faced stick in the second quarter of 2010, we're elated to finally put a face to a promise. The primary downside is that there's no current way for the USB modem to switch from LTE to 3G (or vice-versa) on the fly; instead, you'll need to kill the connection and start a new one when you leave / enter a 4G zone. Purportedly, the stick will play nice with both Windows and OS X, and it can hit real-world download rates as high as 80Mbps and upload rates of 16Mbps. Suddenly, a relocation to Sweden seems altogether more inviting, no?
Wow, FIRST to shit a dual-mode usb modem!
err, *ship
@ROFL TeliaSonera is a Finnish-Swedish company. TeliaSonera is the result of a 2002 merger between the Swedish and Finnish telecommunications companies, Telia and Sonera.
@Discourse
what a creative name...
Mycket bra!
This is nice. I cannot wait for LTE phones!
FYI this does not just apply to TeliaSonera in Sweden, but also NetCom in Norway (which is owned by TeliaSonera).
@Petrus
Oh, and there's a firmware upgrade coming before christmas which will enable automatic switching between 4G and 3G/EDGE.
Sweden!!
Wow that's great for someone, somewhere...
Now only if TeliaSonera would set up LTE networks on the other side of the pond too.. The pond being the Baltic Sea :)
@Zabavan
i vote for the gulf of bothnia as the next pond
Woho! Hope we'll get 4G coverage in Norrköping now aswell.
@MalHaz
Yeah! some 4G to Norrköping please :D
Live in sweden but a smaller city, will hopefully get 4G sometime next year, not loving the price tho. 46$/month until the end of the year and then 77$.
Only 30GB transfer as well :/
@Echuu
the main reason i want this tech available over here is that it would drive down the prices of 3g
Relocating to Sweden is not an option. Move to Finland instead!!! :D
Oh. Let's hope we get it here in Finland soon too. Byebye 100/10 teliasonera stationary connectio, hello 80/16 mobile connection!
@Hypex TeliaSonera 4G trials have been happening in Stockholm and Turku since last year. Elisa has been having 4G trials in Helsinki since January. http://www.elisa.com/on-elisa/140/130.00/16349/
@Hypex 4G connections should go live within this year, in southern Finland at least. Though, we shall see what the price is. I doubt it'll go lower than the 19.90€ for 100/100. (Though, sadly I can get only the 100/10 because of the old wiring)
So I'll keep my fiber, thank you very much.
@Discourse Yeah, they've been happening all over Scandinavia and the Nordic countries. Stockholm, Oslo and Turku.
Wow, just reading about those speeds resulted in girth being added to my epeen.
When's the next flight?
The whole reason I want something like this is so that I *don't* have to be in Sweden.
Hurry up Verizon and AT&T! We are ready for this in the USofA!
@Ezye1313
Hold your horses!
The LTE networks will have a potential fantastic development, but the networks in Sweden are still trials and you are not able to be moving in high speed last I heard. For you who want LTE from TeliaSonera, most likely next country will be Denmark. Sweden is going to have it in several cities by next year.
AT&T who likely have one of the most populated networks in the world are checking the development closely. If the networks develops further they will invest, but not before the handover is working smoothly. The US networks are not among the best in the world but LTE may help a long way.
@frelost73 They're already offering in Sweden and Norway.
While I'm on TeamEVO myself, an LTE iPhone on Verizon is going to be nuts. As will future Android/VZW phones.
Finally people might actually look up Sweden in maps :)
The best would be to have an Android phone with LTE and the hotspot feature *dreams*
I've also heard that my city Göteborg has 4G/LTE already up and running for beta testers, sweet :D
@Fredro
Yep, and according to my sources (Deeeeep inside TeliaSonera) Göteborg got 50Mbit Download (Nokia HW) while in the the Capital (of Scandinavia) Stockholm "only" got 20Mbit (Ericsson HW).
That....suck....är ni goa eller?
/08:an
TeliaSonera also owns NetCom, a Norwegian operator which launched an LTE network in Oslo, Norway JUST before it was launched in Stockholm ;) USB modems are already launched :D
@JohanLG
No, they launched the same day
And whats new is that this sipment of modems handle both 3g and 4G, the old ones were 4G only.
Now only if Verizon LTE speeds is that fast. Real world speed has been around 6Mbps to 12Mbps during trials.
I already live in Sweden and I would never use Telia for anything considering you have to pay them an arm and a leg no matter what you want to do....