TeliaSonera says that Yoigo, its Spanish subsidiary, will be first out of the 4G traps in Spain when it launches LTE services in July.

Using the 1800MHz frequency band, Yoigo will initially roll out LTE in Madrid. The “largest cities” in the country are scheduled for 4G by the end of the year.

Offering an advertised maximum download speed of 100Mb/s, the plan is for Yoigo to reach 37 per cent of Spain’s population with LTE by end 2013. A target of 75 per cent population coverage is set for end 2014.

Yoigo is the fourth operator in Spain, and, according to figures from Wireless Intelligence, trails its three bigger rivals by some distance in terms of attracting subscribers.

TeliaSonera’s Spanish subsidiary had 3.7 million subscribers as of 31 March 2013, far behind Telefonica’s Movistar – number one in Spain – which had 20.3 million. Vodafone and Orange have 15 million and 13.7 million subscribers respectively.

Last month TeliaSonera dropped longstanding plans to sell Yoigo after failing to attract sufficiently high bids. In a statement, the Nordic operator said it was now looking to develop the Spanish operator.

With Yoigo launching 4G, TeliaSonera will have LTE services up and running in all the countries it has a mobile operation – Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and Spain.