Finlands öar rf - Suomen saaret ry - National Association of Finnish IslandsFÖSS
In the archipelago


RELEASE 12 MARCH 2008

Dismantling of Sonera's fixed telephone network, Minister Suvi Lindén

The contact person of FÖSS acted as an intermediary in forwarding to Minister of Communications, Ms. Suvi Lindén, the opinion of entrepeneur Raimo Lehtimaa, living in the islands of Velkua, concerning the dismantling of TeliaSonera's stationary telephone network. Below you will find the opinion and the response of the Minister in full:

The opinion of the entrepeneur, 2 March 2008

Arguments of technical and commercial nature

An entrepeneur living in an archipelago is kept in a worse position in terms of competitive opportunities:

  1. He or she is obliged to renew his or her facilities like telephone systems, telefaxes and modems.

  2. The field contact is in many areas so bad that, realistically, only one operator may be chosen, and even in that case expensive antenna systems are perhaps needed.

  3. The speed of the recommended wireless @450-network is not even compatible with current standards, it only covers one tenth of the need.

  4. The price charged for the use of the @450-network will be a double of what is charged of the current system.

  5. Experience shows that the wireless telefaxes don’t work, it is not possible to transmit fax messages to all recipients.

Solely technical arguments

  1. The low speed mentioned above. It is all right for e-mail, but not for larger picture files, not to mention the transmission of video or television files. The need for a greater speed is growing all the time, the technology offered does not allow for the option of greater speed in a sufficient way.

  2. Wirelessness would depend on a couple of masts; they are apt to be blocked easily, and even if not completely blocked, at least the frequency will narrow to the infinitesimality. A defect would easily blacken out the entire area.

  3. During a crisis a wireless network is of no use.

General level issues

  • The 2004 broadband strategy of the Government: speedy and reasonably priced data communication for everybody
  • Equality of citizens
  • Keeping the countryside and the archipelagos inhabited and taking care of their well-being

Written down during a seminar dealing with village issues, held in Helsinki

Greetings from the seminar,
Raimo Lehtimaa

The reply of the Minister, 11 March 2008

Dear Anne-Maija Kivimäki,

Thank you for you message.

The bearing idea of a communication policy is to see to that the basic communication services (general services) are available all over the country. The current legislative state of affairs makes it possible that telecommunication companies may offer general services even in other ways than through stationary telephone networks.

My point of departure, however, is that before any customer is left without the services of a stationary telecommunications network, he or she must be offered dispensable mobile and broadband services which cover at least twelve conditions fixed in advance. These conditions concern, inter alia, interior cover, electricity supply to the terminal and the network, emergency calls, needs of special groups and speed of the broadband.

My point is that nobody should suffer a loss of right. This means in practice, for example, that the speed of a broadband connection of a persons permanent residence is not allowed to be lowered in the context of a system transfer. It is proposed that the basic service level of a broadband system should be 1Mbit/s. I would like to underline that his is a minimum requirement, and it does not mean that the speed of a current broadband connection should be lowered to that level, in case the speed at the moment is higher.

In order to guarantee the level of communication services my Ministry is ready to consider an immediate amendment of necessary legislative and licence texts.

I have requested from TeliaSonera a detailed commitment on the measures the company is going to undertake in order to guarantee that nobody should suffer losses of rights due to measures launched by the company. A given commitment will simultaneously be considered by my Ministry as a consent by the telecommunications company to amend its licences accordingly.

In addition, I have requested the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority to produce a viable plan to assign additional frequencies for Digita's wireless @450-network in order to provide higher speeds particularly for outlying areas.

Best regards,

Suvi Lindén

Additional information

FINLANDS ÖAR RF – SUOMEN SAARET RY

Contact person
Anne-Maija Kivimäki

050 3657 230


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