Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei Technologies has signed a cooperative agreement with the Finnish telecom giant TeliaSonera to deploy Europe's first SingleRan commercial network based on the software defined radio technology in the northern area of the country.

Huawei's SingleRan solution will allow TeliaSonera to simultaneously provide its GSM and UMTS services to subscribers in Finland. In addition, Huawei will replace TeliaSonera's old GSM base stations with the fourth-generation base stations based on the software defined radio technology and expand the coverage of TeliaSonera's WCDMA network. The solution provided by Huawei will also cover base station controllers, operating support systems, and network deployment services.

Esa Rautalinko, CEO for TeliaSonera's mobile department, said that with Huawei's innovative SingleRan solution, TeliaSonera expects to achieve in-depth merge of the GSM and WCDMA models and improve users' experiences in voice, video and data services.