en.Wedoany.com Reported - Swedish telecom operator Telia and Finnish autonomous airship company Kelluu announced on May 11, 2026, the successful completion of an air-based communication trial in Finnish Lapland using a hydrogen-powered airship carrying a 5G base station. The trial integrated Nokia's Kolibri small cell base station onto Kelluu's autonomous airship, connecting to Telia's core network via a satellite backhaul link and using the 3.5GHz frequency band to provide secure 5G connectivity services to ground users, with standard smartphones able to connect without any modifications.
The trial took place during a recent defense technology event in Lapland, aiming to verify the capability of aerial platforms to provide mission-critical communications in remote and high-latitude areas lacking traditional terrestrial mobile network coverage. Once the airship was airborne, the Nokia Kolibri base station established a link with Telia's core network via a Ka-band satellite terminal and completed 5G cell broadcasting in the 3.5GHz band. Ground tests measured stable terminal downlink rates above 150Mbps and uplink rates exceeding 40Mbps, capable of supporting scenarios such as high-definition video backhaul, drone control, and IoT sensor data collection.
Kelluu's airship is an independently designed and manufactured model powered by hydrogen fuel cells. It is 12 meters long, has a maximum flight altitude of 3,000 meters, and can achieve a single flight endurance of up to 16 hours, with the capability to operate stably under extreme weather conditions within the Arctic Circle. The airship is equipped with an autopilot system, allowing it to cruise autonomously along pre-set routes without the need for real-time control by a ground pilot. Kelluu's Chief Technology Officer, Tuomas Rantala, stated that hydrogen-powered airships, serving as aerial communication nodes, avoid the short endurance limitations of drones while offering lower latency and higher bandwidth density compared to satellite solutions, making them particularly suitable for providing temporary, resilient network coverage for disaster areas, border zones, and military exercise grounds.
Mika Mäkinen, Head of Innovation Business at Telia Finland, pointed out that the 5G airship solution extends 5G coverage to mountains, swamps, and polar ice caps where building traditional base stations was previously impossible, allowing users to connect directly with their existing devices and eliminating the terminal barrier associated with satellite phones. The success of this trial opens up new deployment pathways for emergency communications, defense security, and environmental monitoring in the Nordic and Arctic regions, and also accumulates real-world measurement data for future 6G integrated space-air-ground network architectures.
The Nokia Kolibri is a miniaturized 5G base station designed for dense indoor and outdoor deployments and private use cases. The entire unit weighs approximately 2.5 kilograms, has a volume of 4 liters, and consumes less than 40 watts of power, capable of operating via Power over Ethernet or battery. Its lightweight characteristics make it a suitable payload for high-altitude platforms such as airships, drones, and balloons. Annika Sjöholm, Head of Radio Access Business for Nokia Finland, confirmed that the base station operated stably during the trial, with no spectrum shifts caused by airship vibration or temperature changes.
This trial was conducted against the backdrop of Nordic countries strengthening their polar communication resilience. Following Finland's accession to NATO in 2023, its northern Lapland region, a border area adjacent to Russia, has seen a significant increase in demand for resilient military communications and situational awareness. Concurrently, the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency is promoting the application testing of "aerial base stations" for civilian tasks such as search and rescue, maritime safety, and forest fire prevention. The collaboration between Telia and Kelluu is a pilot project under this initiative.
Telia is one of the largest telecom operators in the Nordic and Baltic regions, with networks covering Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Estonia, and Lithuania, among other countries. In recent years, it has continuously invested in 5G Advanced and Open Radio Access Network technologies. Kelluu, a deep-tech company incubated by the University of Oulu in Finland, specializes in hydrogen-powered autonomous airship platforms, with its products already in service across multiple environmental monitoring and border patrol projects in Europe. The two companies plan to conduct a larger-scale trial in the second half of 2026 involving the cooperative networking of multiple airships, simulating the networking performance and handover capabilities of a multi-node aerial 5G coverage network.
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