The Finland It disconnected the traditional fixed telephone network after nearly 150 years of operation, with the Nordic country becoming the last to make the transition to digital infrastructure.
Estonia, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain have already taken this step, while many countries around the world develop cables fibre optics capable of supporting both internet services and voice calls.
The Finnish fixed telephone network first operated in the 1880s, but as elsewhere, the digital revolution has swept the old technology based on copper wire.
Finland, seat of Nokia, a mobile pioneer company, has seen the use of fixed telephones being replaced by mobile technology.
Elisa, the country's last major telecommunications provider with a copper-based fixed telephone network, marked the end of this service with a telephone conversation between company's CEO, Topi Manner and Yarko Sharimaki, director of the national communications and transport organisation.
The two men talked about their memories of the times when there were only fixed telephones.
Manner remembered his teenage years in London in the 1980s, when he was calling his home once a week at a fixed time to make sure the whole family was there. They also discussed the future of mobile technology before ending their phone communication with one «kuulemin» («See you later.» In Finnish).
Elisa had announced in January that she would stop operating her bronze network in June, then stating that she had only «certain thousands» subscribers only for fixed telephone calls and that for years there have been no new subscribers.
The only fixed telephone subscription providers in Finland are now some local providers, who currently manage a few thousand subscriptions for local calls, broadcast by public broadcaster Yle.
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