Finland tops in mobile data use in Norden, but behind in broadband

Finland stands out for the use of mobile data but lags behind the rest of the Nordic countries in the availability of fixed-line broadband, reported Xinhua, quoting a press of the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom on Monday.

In 2020, on average 48 gigabytes (GB) of mobile data per month was used per person in Finland. In the other four Nordic countries -- Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland -- this figure ranged between six and 19GB, and in the three neighboring Baltic states -- Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania -- it was between 22 and 32GB.

However, Finland lags behind the other Nordic states in the availability of fixed-line broadband. In 2020, only 65 percent of Finnish households used such a service, while in the rest of the Nordics the availability ranged between 88 percent and 95 percent. The growth rate in terms of household access to high-speed fixed broadband in Finland has been a couple of percentage points annually.

Elina Pallas, a senior specialist at Traficom, noted in the press release that 43 percent of Finnish households use mobile data connection only. The country's mobile operators rather aggressively market mobile broadband and mobile plans usually have no data limit.

The importance of mobile data in Finland is also reflected in the number of broadband subscriptions. Finland still has the highest number of broadband subscriptions per capita, which is largely explained by the popularity of mobile broadband.

Finns have 0.38 of such mobile subscriptions per inhabitant, according to the Traficom. In Finland, mobile data is widely used to access banking, shopping and media services.

Traficom compiles and publishes a comparative survey every year, it noted.