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they want, if there is a market. In some regions of Finland there might be three or four companies building fibre in the same area, so there is some risk of overbuilding. But then equally there are regions where nobody is building because there are so few people and it’s not profitable.” Along came a pandemic Before 2020, DNA, Elisa and Telia had 95% market share in mobile broadband; Finnet started to build out its fibre networks in 2013. When COVID hit in 2020, Jarmo said in Finland they realised rather suddenly they had to start remote working, but they didn’t have proper lines. It was therefore a big investment opportunity; there are only 150,000 FTTH customers and about 600,000 FTDB, (which means fibre to the building). There were a million houses without fibre. And in 2021-2022, three of those investment bankers started three new companies, Valokuitunen, which together with Telia, and then there was Valo Adola. “Suddenly we noticed that global connectivity has come to Finland. So there was €1.5bn investment across three companies, and they started heavily to build out to households all over the country.” “Then there was another funding round of investment and they started to build out nationwide. And now there are around 200,000 new fibre lines being installed every year, with investment of €100-200m euros per year.” Much as in the rest of Europe, Covid accelerated deployment. 2.2 million households are already connected, and businesses are increasingly adopting fibre over mobile. “That is now changing There are new DOCSIS subscribers emerging because that’s a reasonable, uncomplicated way to deliver gigabit speeds to people living in MDUs.
the market. We can see that and mobile broadband amount is decreasing and FTTH and FTDP amount is increasing,” Jarmo said. Nokia’s Vanhastel also hinted at other dynamics like ‘human impatience’ continuing to push the need for fibre rollouts. “It’s often said the real ‘killer app’ for gigabit speeds is human impatience. With more than 40% of users leaving a website if it takes over five seconds to load, today’s networks must be able to handle increasingly bursty, on-demand traffic and rising expectations for instant responsiveness. Fibre’s unmatched capacity is driving rapid global adoption of PON, with more than 500 networks already delivering gigabit speeds. As the technology evolves to 25G, 50G and beyond, operators can use the same networks to further boost performance and meet evolving demands.” Russia and security 2026 has only just started and we have had a good year’s worth of geopolitical upheaval to digest already; where we’ll be by the year’s end is anyone’s guess (I started writing this just after Venezuela had been invaded, amid threats of a Greenland annexation but before the US had gone to war with Iran). We live in very uncertain times. Technically it is also all to play for as many are betting the AI bubble is about to burst, and others are still full steam ahead. AI is changing our ways of working regardless, insidiously informing our choices, lifestyles, social feeds and (God forbid) editorial, as time goes on.
I’m looking forward is is what the future will bring depending on what sort of different markets, what sort of different use cases there are for fibre products, because the need to transfer data is not going anywhere.” Hollow core fibre is the hot topic at present, and Aleksanteri agreed that the best use case for this new technology would be data centres – for now. “There is also the defence side, rising up with the unfortunate geopolitical situation. But you know, we’ve been next to Russia forever. It didn’t come as a surprise, unfortunately. I mean, but not just Finland, but all around the European Union, you can see that the attitude towards defence and self-support, has changed.” Given the appetite for data that is only heading one way, and the frequency of subsea cables being cut by bad actors over the border, Aleksanteri added that subsea is also “something that we’re looking into.” Well, you would, wouldn’t you? Like Aleksanteri, Jarmo was unfazed. “We have been living here centuries, so we know. They tried to come here 80 years ago and they didn’t manage it, so we have something of a tradition.” Our executive described Finns as having a pragmatic approach. “We just build as good a defence, precaution and protection as we can. We don’t much talk about it, we don’t much advertise it, but, you know, it’s not something Finland’s started building like last year, it’s been the case for as long as I can remember.” She wryly observed Western Europe’s sleepy complacency, remarking that “in 25 years of working in telecoms it was only in 2024 that the rest
Aleksanteri agreed. “There’s AI, there is a big, big transition in our networks. What
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MAY 2026 Volume 48 No.2
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