Taken from The Broadband Coverage in Europe 2023 Report - a study prepared for the European Commission DG Communications Networks, Content & Technology
by OMDIA and Point Topic Ltd.
National coverage by broadband technology
Overall fixed broadband coverage in Finland stabilised in 2023 at 82.7%, after a number of years of decline as a result of continued DSL decommissioning. Total broadband coverage is now only 3 p.p. ahead of NGA coverage which increased by 4.8 p.p. in the year to June 2023, reaching 79.7% of households. At a rural level 76.6% of homes were passed by at least one fixed broadband network, a decrease of 3.5 percentage points.
The fixed VHCN (DOCSIS 3.1 & FTTP) coverage grew by 7.0 percentage points, passing 77.7% of homes. Finland remains slightly below the EU average (78.8%) on this metric, but the gap is closing. In rural areas the gap is wider, but coverage has been growing rapidly, increasing by 14.0 p.p. in the year to reach almost four in ten rural households (39.3%), 16.3 p.p. below the EU level (55.7%).
Among the individual fixed broadband technologies, FTTP coverage again grew strongly, up by 10.8 p.p. over the year following a 10.3 p.p. increase in 2022. Coverage now reaches six in ten households (61.1%) – closing the gap versus the EU to just 2.8 percentage points. FTTP is the most prevalent technology at national level by a large margin, as the DSL decommissioning programme has progressed rapidly. DSL coverage fell by 14.4 percentage points year-on-year, down to 27.5% of Finnish households – only Latvia and Luxembourg recorded lower DSL coverage.
Availability of Cable DOCSIS 3.1 technology decreased by 5.5 percentage points during the study period, covering 32.4% of all households. Finnish cable operators were among early adopters of NGA technologies and all cable networks in the country had been upgraded to the DOCSIS 3.1 standard by the end of June 2019.
In line with the overall reduction in DSL coverage, availability of VDSL and VDSL2 Vectoring services fell in this year’s study. VDSL was available to 22.6% of homes (a 11.4 p.p. decrease on the previous year), while VDSL2 Vectoring services were available to 19.9% of Finnish households.
Regarding mobile broadband coverage, 5G coverage reached 98.3%, up by 3.7 p.p. on the previous year. 5G coverage in the 3.4–3.8 GHz band was again the highest in this year’s study at 89.7%, indicating the strength of Finland’s mobile sector.
Rural broadband coverage in Finland saw a continued transition from DSL to FTTP during the study period. DSL covered 42.0% of households, down by 17.5 p.p., while rural FTTP coverage increased by 14.0 p.p. to reach 39.3% of rural homes. DOCSIS technologies remained absent in rural areas, but VDSL was available to 26.3% of rural households, and VDSL2 Vectoring to 13.3%. Meanwhile rural 5G rollouts accelerated during the year, with coverage reaching 92.4% of households. Over half (50.2%) of rural households had access to 5G using the 3.4–3.8 GHz band, one of the highest figures in this year’s study.
Regional coverage by broadband technology
In this iteration of the study, only 1 Finnish region recorded fixed VHCN (FTTP & DOCSIS 3.1) coverage above 95% – the small autonomous island region of Åland. Most of the remaining 18 regions surpassed 65% coverage, with only five remaining below the 65% threshold (Kymenlaakso, Etelä-Karjala, Etelä-Savo, Keski-Pohjanmaa, and Lappi.
Only one of Finland’s 19 regions has FTTP coverage below 35% (Päijät-Häme). Six regions now have FTTP coverage above 65%, up from only two in last year’s study.
As mentioned in previous iterations of this study, Finland is atypical in the sense that broadband coverage levels are not strongly correlated to the degree of urbanisation. None of the three regions with the most rural households is among those with the lowest fixed broadband coverage.
Data tables for Finland
Note: The 2023 figures represent the state of broadband coverage at the end of June 2023. The 2022 (end of June) and 2021 (end of June) figures are drawn from the previous studies conducted by IHS Markit, Omdia, and Point Topic.
All restatements are highlighted in italics.
Taken from The Broadband Coverage in Europe 2023 Report - a study prepared for the European Commission DG Communications Networks, Content & Technology
by OMDIA and Point Topic Ltd.
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