The world’s first commercially-available 4G wireless mobile networking service has been launched by the Swedish carrier TeliaSonera. The 4G service, which boasts of speeds ranging between 20Mbps to 80Mbps, is initially available only in central parts of Stockholm, Sweden and Oslo, Norway.

The advertised TeliaSonera 4G data speeds, even on the low end, happen to be almost seven times faster than AT&T’s 3G network, which is considered the fastest 3G in the US. And, the 80Mbps service is a mammoth 22-fold faster than the AT&T 3G speeds.

TeliaSonera’s initial 4G contract has gone to rival vendors – while Ericsson is managing the Stockholm network; Huawei has taken the responsibility for Oslo. The two vendors are also the frontrunners for bigger contracts for the next stage of the rollout in January.

At present, the 4G rollout, based on the Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology, is accessible only through personal computers, that too by means of a Samsung USB dongle. However, from next year, 4G-capable handsets would likely hit the markets.

Though 4G is substantially faster than the existing wireless networks, there is nothing persuasive about 4G or LTE in the current scenario. The network does not have much to offer, other than its blazing data speeds. However, as 4G becomes a ‘mainstream’ network and begins substituting 3G networks worldwide, new applications will expectedly be designed to exploit the network’s increased bandwidth.