I.T.

Infrastructure
OVERVIEW COMMUNICATION HISTORY As early as 1855 a state owned monopoly called Telegraferket began providing telegraph service in Norway. By 1871 connections were available from Oslo all the way up to the north coast, to Sweden, Denmark and Great Britain. Telephone service began was offered in 1878 and rapidly expanded. In 1980 the first steps were taken to digitize the telephone networks. From the 1980s through 2004 telephony improved through automated switching, to manual mobile through GSM. Norway was the first country in Europe to have automatic mobile telephone systems. INTERNET In 1968 Norway began operating the Norwegian Seismic Array (NORSAR) which was part of a US/Norway agreement to detect seismic activity and nuclear explosions. The location of the seismic sensors corresponded with a vein of granite that runs from just outside Oslo into Russia. In 1972 a satellite link was set up between the NORSAR and ARPANET and Norway became the first non-English speaking nation to join what would become the internet. NORSAR continues to operate the seismology network in Norway and do seismological research, software design and consults with the petroleum industry.

UNINETT Research and educational institutions have access to a high speed, high-capacity network called UNINETT. The system is available throughout Norway, including the island of Svalbard. The system requires a 1 Gbit/s Ethernet interface. FUTURE In 2013 nearly the entire population of Norway (98%) had access to the internet. This is not to say that it was all broadband. The government standard for this service was that the basic broadband available to Norwegians at minimum 2Mbps download and 250kbps upload. After elections in 2013 the new government has made it a goal to bring about a system that delivers 100Mbps download speeds to all citizens. Prior to this statement, broad band development had been left to the market place. The new coalition feels that The government must have the ultimate responsibility for access to broadband. To do this the government is planning a state run fund of NOK 100bn ($16.9 billion US) for infrastructure improvements. The improvements are not limited to internet infrastructure, but also to roads, railway and community transport projects. A big part of the plan is to build out the services into rural areas that would normally not receive much attention from companies unwilling to invest in areas with small numbers of users. (yvann, Stig, http://www.znet.com/100mbps-broadband-and-easier-fibre-rollouts-new-coalition-sets-out-its-priotities-7000021806/) Telenor, Norways leading telecommunication, committed $682 million in 2013 to build out fiber optic infrastructure to improve business band width. According to Bjorn Ivar Moen, business market manager at Telenor, The need for higher bandwidth in Norwegian businesses is rising. We are currently experiencing a trend where services that were previously on local servers at each individual company are now moving to the internet as cloud-based services Telenor is also looking at area of increasing business that have traditional copper infrastructure to be upgraded. (Source: TeleGeography by ICT STATISTICS NEWSLOG)