Fast fixed broadband in growing number of households

At the end of June 2019, there were more than 1.7 million fixed broadband subscriptions in Finland, of which 1.5 million were household subscriptions. The total number grew slightly alongside the increasing number of household subscriptions. However, the number of fixed broadband subscriptions used by corporate customers continued to decrease. 

The download and upload speeds of broadband subscriptions have increased in comparison to the year before. The number of subscriptions with more than 100 Mbps download speed had grown by 5 percentage units to 41 per cent. Up to 95 per cent of active fixed broadband subscriptions provided more than 10 Mbps download speed at the end of June. 

The increase in upload speed has been even more considerable. At the end of June 2019, almost 80 per cent of fixed broadband subscriptions provided more than 10 Mbps upload speed, whereas in June 2018, the corresponding figure was around 50 per cent. 

At the end of June 2019, there were more than 1.7 million cable TV subscriptions and almost 0.5 million IPTV subscriptions in Finland. The number of fixed telephone subscriptions continued to decrease both for corporate customers and households. The number of fixed telephone subscriptions remaining in households was around 100,000. 

Coverage of fast mobile networks grew moderately 

The mobile network coverage continued to expand moderately during the first half of 2019. At the end of June, the 100 Mbps (download) network by one or more mobile operators covered 18 per cent of Finland’s land area, which is two percentage points more than at the end of 2018. Up to 93 per cent of households were within this coverage. There is very little geographical overlap in the 100 Mbps coverage of different operators. Only 3 per cent of Finland’s land area is covered by 100 Mbps networks by three operators. 

Up to 99 per cent of households and 58 per cent of Finland’s land area are covered by 30 Mbps mobile network. By contrast, less than one per cent of Finland’s land area and 16 per cent of households are within the 300 Mbps coverage. When looking at mobile network speeds, it is good to remember that network congestion and different physical structures, for example, can have major negative effects on the speeds. 

At the end of June, there were a total of 9.34 million mobile subscriptions in Finland, which is almost the same as the year before. To better indicate the growth of IoT (Internet of Things) in the statistics, the definition of M2M solutions in data collection has been specified to cover all SIM cards sold for machine-to-machine communications and related data transfer. At the end of June, there were 1.6 million SIM cards intended only for M2M communications. These SIM cards or related data transfer are not included in the statistics on subscriptions, and therefore this change has only a minor retrospective effect on these figures. 

Mobile data usage grew to 34 gigabytes per Finn per month during the first half of 2019, which is 21 per cent more than the year before. The data usage varied greatly between subscription types. The average amount of data transferred per a data-only mobile broadband subscription per month was 48 gigabytes, whereas the corresponding figure for most subscriptions (median) was less than 10 gigabytes per month. 

The figures are based on data reported by telecommunications operators to Traficom every six months. 

Further information 

Enquiries

Marja Heinonen, Communications Market Specialist, marja.heinonen(at)traficom.fi, tel. +358 29 539 0306 

Joonas Sotaniemi, Communications Market Specialist (coverage), joonas.sotaniemi(at)traficom.fi, tel. +358 29 539 0309