A unique antenna solution can now fill the municipality’s white spots easily and cost-effectively. The Swedish technology company Radio Innovation shows in a pilot project together with Ludvika municipality and the regional development company Samarkand2015 that it is possible to get good mobile coverage at a financially defensible cost in places where this is currently lacking. With the new antenna technology, it will be possible for all the municipality’s residents to both make mobile calls and surf the internet where there is no coverage. And above all, give everyone the opportunity to reach emergency number 112.
The goal of the project is to help give Ludvika residents access to telephony and mobile internet throughout the municipality, even where there have previously been so-called white spots.
– Our goal is to ensure that people have access to mobile internet regardless of where in the municipality they live. It is a democratic right. This antenna solution has both the financial and technical conditions required to cover white spots in a cost-effective way where mobile and internet traffic coverage is lacking, says Leif Pettersson, Municipal Council in Ludvika municipality.
The new antenna solution has been mounted on Fjällberget’s existing mast and a number of tests have been carried out. The test results show that the antenna solution makes it fully possible to cover the white spots on the map. The collaboration with Radio Innovation started already in 2018 and since this year the project is part of the national project Full Coverage.
– The government has set a goal that by 2023, the entire population of Sweden will have access to stable mobile services of good quality. The Dala municipalities are perhaps Sweden’s most difficult area to get good coverage in because there is a lot of forests, high mountains and deep valleys. We see that it is crucial to quickly find a working solution as the telecom cables are cut and compensation for good coverage is lacking, says Lars Lindblom, CEO of Samarkand2015.
Ludvika is a municipality that is at the forefront when it comes to high technology and the interest in testing the new antenna solution is big. The technology that is now being tested in the area is easy to apply to the country’s other white spots. Depending on, among other things, the topography, you can adapt the antenna and use so-called hotspots to reach everywhere.
– Our antenna solution makes it possible to get coverage in places that can never otherwise be financially defensible to cover, says Dusyant Patel, CEO of Radio Innovation, and continues:
– At present, we have only been able to test the internet, but if an operator with an agreement for telephony starts broadcasting via our antenna, it will also be possible to make calls. It then works with a roaming function, so that regardless of which mobile telephony agreement a person has, our antenna signals take over if the person lives or is in an area where there was previously no coverage, a so-called white spot on the map
Radio Innovation has already received international attention and has so far been the only Swedish company to become part of two international accelerator programs, Facebook Connectivity and Orange Fab. In addition, the company is nominated for the GLOMO Awards, which will be decided on the 30th of June in Barcelona. Radio Innovation, together with Samarkand, is part of Vinnova’s funded project Full Coverage, where the result will be a contribution to full coverage on a national level.
Source: Radio Innovation
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