Finland Ends Over 140 Years of Landline Phone Service

Finland has concluded a telecommunications era spanning over 140 years by making its final landline telephone call before permanently shutting down all fixed-line phone services starting Wednesday morning.

This development followed the Finnish telecommunications company Elisa's announcement to completely deactivate its landline network for both private customers and businesses, terminating a service that had been integral to Finnish daily life for decades.

Elisa’s move came after its competitor Telia had already ceased its landline services in 2019, while another operator, DNA, discontinued support for fixed-line networks earlier this year.

Historically, Finland had established a landline telephone network since the 1880s and was among the first populations to enthusiastically adopt this technology. By the 1960s, Finland ranked seventh in Europe for the number of landline subscriptions, with the number of home landlines reaching its peak in the early 1990s.

However, the number of landline phones steadily declined with the rise of mobile phones, especially as Finnish company Nokia became a global leader in mobile technology. This shift gradually rendered landline phones obsolete, relegating them to the past.