Ice Group ASA (ICE) has signed a new national roaming agreement (NRA) with Telia Norge AS (Telia) with effect from 1 January 2021. The new NRA will replace the current agreement with Telia that expires 31 March 2021. The new NRA lasts until 31 December 2023 with a 1+1 year extension option, whereas the last 1 year option is under certain conditions.

The new NRA has a price structure in line with the new “Market-15” regulation implemented from 1 June 2020. The new agreement will lower ICE’s NRA costs significantly and would have resulted in NRA costs of approximately NOK 200 million if applied to FY 2020, compared to the current guidance for 2020 of NOK 450 million. This would correspond to NRA cost of 11-12% of smartphone service revenues for 2020, compared to the current level of approximately 30%.

“This agreement is very important for improving our profitability and increasing our EBITDA-margin going forward. With continued network buildout we expect NRA cost to come down to 7-9% of smartphone service revenues, further improving our profitability in the coming years,” says Henning Karlsrud, CFO in Ice Group ASA.

During 2021 ICE targets to reach up to 3,500 smartphone base stations on air, resulting in a population coverage of more than 95% and producing more than 90% of the traffic through its own modern ice+ network.

“Ice will continue to build the third network in Norway, installing base-stations, expanding the coverage of our network and increasing the on-net share going forward. The support from Norwegian authorities and the new “Market-15” regulation is very important in order to realizing the third national mobile network in Norway. We have now delivered 21 consecutive quarters of smartphone subscription growth and we remain confident that we will continue to win market share and improve margins strongly going forward,” says Eivind Helgaker, CEO in Ice Group ASA.

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