Finland to end landline phone service on Tuesday

Finland will make its final landline phone call on Tuesday, ending over a century of fixed-line telephone service, Yle reports.

Telecom operator Elisa announced earlier this year it would discontinue all remaining landline connections for private and business customers by the end of June. Telia phased out its landline network in 2019, while DNA’s landlines went silent at the turn of the year.

The copper wire network, in use since the 1880s, once made Finland a European leader in telephone adoption. By 1950, the country had seven phones per 100 inhabitants, and by the 1960s it ranked seventh in Europe for telephone connections. Landline use peaked in Finnish households in the early 1990s.

Elisa now reports only a few thousand landline connections remain. The operator will begin the massive task of dismantling thousands of kilometers of copper wire infrastructure, a process expected to take several years.