Category Archives: Finland

Are Europe’s most pronounced fixed wireless operators taking half a step back?

American carriers and uncarriers are embracing fixed wireless as one of the first use cases that 5G will solve. Verizon finally lifted the curtain on its fixed wireless offering yesterday: Verizon 5G Home. October 1 it will be available for 50 USD per month to existing Verizon customers in certain areas in Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles and Sacramento.

T-Mobile’s 5G will – to use their own words – have more ‘breadth and depth‘ than Verizon’s. With 5G, T-Mobile will position itself within fixed wireless for the first time:

“51% of Americans have only one high-speed broadband option – no choice at all! The combined company will create a viable alternative for millions by enabling mobile connections that rival broadband, driving prices lower and improving service.”

The only caveat when it comes to T-Mobile’s ambition is that it is conditional. This will happen if T-Mobile and Sprint are allowed to merge – a decision not yet made.

But if fixed wireless is up and coming in the US, it’s actually a pretty established business for a few operators across the pond – in Europe. Continue reading Are Europe’s most pronounced fixed wireless operators taking half a step back?

Who has the best network in the Nordics? Winter 2018 update.

When we again dive into OpenSignal‘s crowdsourced stats from the Nordics it is to see if something changed with regards to the network experiences of mobile customers in the region.


This is an update of the previous version of this comparison which was based on data from the autumn of 2017. The old blog contains more background and reasoning.


The data is gathered from December 2017 to February 2018 and covers about 380 million readings from about 12000 unique devices. The data has not been published by OpenSignal but has been shared with us through OpenSignal’s analyst program.

4G availability

The graph below ranks the fourteen operators in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland after how large proportion of time 4G LTE capable devices have been connected to 4G LTE. OpenSignal calls this 4G availability.

Continue reading Who has the best network in the Nordics? Winter 2018 update.

The secret behind Elisa’s financials

The Finnish-Estonian operator Elisa just published its 4Q 2017 results. And it was a new record in revenue and profitability.

How is that even possible? Readers of our public analysis of mobile data usage know that Finland is the mobile data usage powerhouse of the world – and that Elisa is no exception.

But Elisa doesn’t charge per gigabyte – so where is the revenue growth coming from? How can the company make more profit when it needs to handle all that traffic? This blog reveals their secret. Continue reading The secret behind Elisa’s financials

Who has the best network in the Nordics?

There are several ways to measure network performance and the results of published tests can therefore differ.

Mobile operators have a tendency to criticise test results when they have lost and promote results when they have won.

An example of this is the recent drivetest by Connect Magazine in Switzerland as performed by P3 Group. Whereas Salt seems furious – the CEO-commented release is an interesting read – Sunrise uses the results in its marketing.

Who will be the first operator – anywhere – to complain about a test methodology after having won?

What differs even more than the network test results is the perception of network quality. For an operator it is much more important that its customers are having the perception of the best network than actually having the best network. Continue reading Who has the best network in the Nordics?

European 4G – mission accomplished?

Look at the graph below. It should satisfy mobile end-users, operators, regulators, politicians and equipment suppliers.

It shows that all operators have improved 4G coverage to the extent that they all (well almost) reach above 90% of the population by the end of June.

Mission accomplished then? Continue reading European 4G – mission accomplished?

Nordic operator benchmark 2017

Benchmarks, 2017

For the fifth consecutive year: Comprehensive business benchmark including more than 600 KPIs covering revenue, OPEX, CAPEX, headcount productivity, subscriptions & channels, performance, load, quality and innovation & growth – for 41 functions of mobile, fixed/cable and integrated operators – respectively. Continue reading Nordic operator benchmark 2017

Nordic operator benchmark 2016

Benchmarks, 2016Nordic flags

For the fourth consecutive year: Comprehensive business benchmark including more than 600 KPIs covering revenue, OPEX, CAPEX, headcount productivity, subscriptions & channels, performance, load, quality and innovation & growth – for 41 functions of mobile, fixed/cable and integrated operators – respectively. Continue reading Nordic operator benchmark 2016

Nordic operators’ networks have no equal in speed. On 3G.

4G coverage is great as well – but 4G speeds are slowing

Having ran the Nordic operator benchmark four years in a row now we know that Nordic operators have world-leading network quality.

OpenSignalOpenSignal just issued its first State of Mobile Networks report covering the four Nordic countries Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway. Based on 34 million crowdsourced tests taken in Q1 2016, OpenSignal shows which country (and which operator in it) that has the best:

  • 4G coverage
  • 4G download speed
  • 3G download speed
  • Combined download speed
  • 4G latency
  • 3G latency

And it is a race of high standards and tight results. Continue reading Nordic operators’ networks have no equal in speed. On 3G.

German operators: We listened to your customers. Maybe you should too?

This innocent tweet – based on official statistics from the German and Finnish telecom regulators – has currently been read by more than 90 000 people:

Continue reading German operators: We listened to your customers. Maybe you should too?

“The best network” worth 6% of EBITDA

Wondered why American carriers spent so much effort and marketing dollars claiming and defending “the best mobile network” position lately?

It started with Verizon‘s balls commercial:

Continue reading “The best network” worth 6% of EBITDA

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