LIVE FROM GSMA MOBILE 360-EUROPE, BRUSSELS: Kjell-Morten Johnsen (pictured), head of Europe for Telenor Group, said that the industry should not lose focus on the continued development of 4G networks amid the hype surrounding 5G, stating that “very often success stands on the shoulders of previous success”.

This is “so we are building the fundamentals now, and not relying on getting something right in four or five or six years. It’s important to do it, but let’s work with what we have, the challenges here, today,” he said.

His comments were echoed by Anne Bouverot, director general of the GSMA.

“To make 5G successful, we have to be great at 4G. I think we cannot just say ‘forget 4G, we were late, let’s move to 5G’. It doesn’t work like that: we have to do the job, we are on track to do it, we have to do it,” she said.

Speaking in a session titled Infrastructure Driving Growth in Europe, the Telenor executive also talked about network sharing and consolidation, in the wake of Telenor’s recent deal with TeliaSonera for the Danish market.

Johnsen described the decision to work with TeliaSonera as “Nordic pragmatism”, with a joint statement from the companies last week arguing that operators faced “continued pressure on revenue and profitability, limiting the room for investments and innovation”.

“If you look at some of the European countries, they are very small, to sustain three or indeed four networks is a complete waste of society’s resources,” he said. “Network sharing is something we need to be positive to.”

Telenor is also involved in network sharing ventures in Sweden, working with Tele2 (2G and 4G) and 3 (3G). “We did the same in Sweden, because the burden of building the network was too big for individual companies,” Johnsen said.