The End of an Era in Finland: A massive chapter in telecommunications history of Finland has officially come to a close. On June 30, 2026, Elisa shut down its landline phone network, marking the formal end of over 140 years of landline history in Finland. Elisa’s Chief Technology Officer, Kalle Lehtinen, said: “Voice isn’t disappearing; the way we use it is just changing.” The rival operators DNA and Telia closed their landline networks earlier.
To mark the historical occasion, Elisa’s CEO Topi Manner placed the very last commercial landline call from London to Jarkko Saarimäki, the Director-General of the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency (Traficom), hosted at Elisa’s Phone Museum in Helsinki.
Finland actually held onto its landline infrastructure longer than some of its Nordic neighbors, like Sweden. The real shift began in the 1990s with the rise of the internet, followed by a massive turning point in the early 2000s when mobile phones rapidly eclipsed traditional home phones.
What’s Next? The physical infrastructure cleanup across the country will continue for years as miles of old cabling are systematically collected and recycled. As the old copper wires are pulled from the ground, Finland’s digital future is being built on a combination of high-speed fiber-optic cables and wireless mobile networks (4G,5G and groundwork for the upcoming 6G era).
Source:
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2026/06/30/puhelinlangat-hiljenivat-kaapeleita-kerataan-viela-vuosia/
Links to my related blog posts:
https://www.epanorama.net/blog/2019/08/08/telephone-history-from-tekniikan-museo/
https://www.epanorama.net/blog/2019/01/08/end-of-wired-telephone-is-near-in-finland/
https://www.epanorama.net/blog/2013/04/15/ethernet-and-telephone-can-share-same-wires/
https://www.epanorama.net/blog/2021/04/08/huge-telephone-cable-replaced-with-fiber/
https://www.epanorama.net/blog/2021/05/25/telephone-cables-start-to-dissappear/
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