Odurinde Finance & Business Blog

Over the years, the telecommunication industry has been doing very well in Finland. In the year 2009, the mobile market grew by over 12.5%. The penetration of mobile in this market is almost close to 150% and that is a high figure. It is therefore clear that the Finland market is going along a different trajectory than other markets like Germany or even the UK and at this rate, will reach a penetration level of 200%. The forecast by the year 2014 is that it will touch 197%.

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One major reason for this superb growth performance has been the emphasis of mobile operators on the prepaid service offering and this has helped many customers to use the mobile service without having to worry about costs getting out of hand. Besides Telia Sonera which remains the market leader, the other two operators in Finland – Elisa and DNA have also seen a rapid rise in their prepaid market share numbers with DNA experiencing good volumes in the MVNO category of customers.

There is also a great demand for data, broadband and call center services in Finland and 3G subscribers have also contributed to this growth. Due to the highly spread out nature of topography of Finland, wireless technology has great potential and offering 3G services through this technology is proving to be a big success. However, the fixed line phone numbers are not seeing the same kind of growth and operators are turning to cost effective wireless technologies to deal with loss of subscribers in this segment.

In a major legislation move, the government of Finland has compelled the various internet service providers in that country to ensure that they provide broadband facilities of 1mbps effective the 1st of July to every citizen of the country at reasonable prices. Finland will thus be the very first country through this legislation to make sure that this facility of broadband access becomes a legal right that its citizens can enforce. The authorities in the communications department are confident and are hoping that people would take advantage of this legislation and approach the service providers of their area to get the facility.

The authorities have accorded this legislation the same status as that of essential services such as the post or telephone and have named it Universal Service Obligation. The FICORA or the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority has directed the internet service providers to charge between 30 to 40 Euros every month to the subscribers and they feel that this would be a reasonable amount.

Though this legislation might seem strange, it has to be noted that Finland is one among the very few countries in the world which provides some sort of access to the internet to a very great portion of its population already and the telecommunications behemoth Nokia is based out of this country. The growth of telecommunication industry have also increase the growth in all aspect of business and service in the country.