Summary
- Denmark becomes the third Nordic country to join KNL's NORDEFCO communications framework after Finland and Sweden.
- KNL says its high-frequency system can operate independently of satellite communications and GNSS.
- The procurement reflects growing investment in communications that can remain available when primary infrastructure is disrupted or jammed.
Denmark has joined a Nordic defence procurement framework for secure high-frequency communications, extending regional investment in systems designed to keep operating without satellite communications or global navigation infrastructure.
Telenor subsidiary KNL said Denmark’s Defence Acquisition and Logistics Organisation can now procure its communications systems through the Nordic Defence Cooperation, or NORDEFCO, framework. Denmark follows Finland and Sweden as the third participating defence force.
KNL says its high-frequency technology operates independently of external infrastructure including satellite communications and global navigation satellite systems. The company says connections are encrypted and designed to remain stable under jamming and electromagnetic interference.
Those are vendor descriptions of the technology rather than independent performance assessments, but the procurement model itself reflects a wider resilience requirement. Modern defence communications are heavily dependent on satellites, terrestrial networks, and positioning systems, creating multiple points at which disruption, jamming, cyber operations, or physical damage can affect availability.
High-frequency radio offers a different route. It can carry communications over long distances without relying on the same fixed infrastructure, although bandwidth, propagation conditions, interoperability, and operational requirements differ markedly from satellite or terrestrial services.
The Finnish and Swedish arrangement runs from 2025 to 2035. Telenor said three orders publicly announced under the framework have a combined value of around €23.5 million. All five NORDEFCO countries — Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden — are eligible to participate.
KNL has also qualified for a UK tactical communications procurement framework worth up to £4.7 billion over eight years. Qualification does not guarantee orders, but it places the company within another defence procurement structure centred on resilient communications.
The Nordic expansion comes as European governments reassess the infrastructure assumptions underpinning defence and civil resilience. Satellite connectivity, subsea cables, cloud infrastructure, mobile networks, and navigation services are increasingly considered together because military and civilian systems often depend on the same underlying technologies.
Communications resilience therefore depends less on finding a single hardened network than on maintaining credible alternatives. A system able to function when satellite navigation or communications are unavailable can reduce dependence on one class of infrastructure, even if it cannot replace those services in normal operations.
The procurement also has an interoperability dimension. Nordic countries have deepened defence cooperation as NATO’s northern flank has become more strategically important, with Finland and Sweden joining the alliance and regional forces placing greater emphasis on operating together.
Shared procurement can reduce the technical fragmentation that otherwise appears when individual armed forces buy systems independently. Common equipment does not by itself produce interoperability, but it can simplify training, maintenance, and communications planning across national forces.
The cyber element is inseparable from the physical and electromagnetic environment. A communications system may be disrupted by malware, compromised credentials, radio-frequency interference, damage to infrastructure, or the loss of satellite services. Resilience planning has to account for combinations of those conditions rather than treating cyber security as a separate layer.
Denmark’s entry into the framework is therefore a relatively modest procurement development with broader strategic context. Nordic defence organisations are spending on alternative communications paths before they are needed, reflecting an assumption that primary networks cannot be guaranteed in a contested environment.
