Mobile portal Mobilmania.sk has run an interview with Swan\'s general director Miroslav Strecansky and its board chairman Juraj Ondris, after the fourth operator caused a surprise by winning spectrum in the Slovak LTE auction. Swan, which belongs to the group DanubiaTel, sees its WiMax network as an advantage in building an LTE network. The WiMax infrastructure is suitable for a smooth upgrade to 4G. Swan will need some 1,000 and eventually 1,500 base stations for LTE. The operator has some 300 WiMax sites that can be used immediately, so about one third of the total number of necessary base stations can be migrated at relatively low cost.

Swan is interested in providing both data and voice services. About a week ago, it started negotiating with the big three operators on national roaming. They have declared their willingness to negotiate. Based on the licence framework, the competitors should provide national roaming when covering 20 percent with their own respective networks.

Swan has declared the launch of services using LTE by September. In the first stage, it will offer them to current customers for testing. Swan considers its current, not very active, MVNO Swan Mobile, which uses the network of Telefonica Slovakia, as a half-product and it is separate from the new, fully fledged mobile operator that Swan plans to launch. The brand name under which Swan will offer the mobile services has not yet been decided.

To finance the investments, Swan will have two resources, namely technology suppliers and banks. It is premature to speak about a service portfolio, until national roaming conditions are known. What the company does know, however, is that it will provide data services even without data roaming. Swan wants to follow the trend, which is data becoming the main revenue source for mobile operators.
The operator does not intend to sell the spectrum. The core business is business clients, largely served via WiMax. The licence for WiMax expires this year and in the case of an auction, big players could push Swan out of the market. With the new LTE services, Swan plans to address individual clients, which is easier to begin with.