The Final Ring

FINLAND – Last Ever (Landline) Telephone Call Made on 30 June 2026!!!

Tuesday, 30 June 2026 marked the last landline phone call ever made in Finland. At midnight, the last call on the vast copper telephone network built in Finland since the 1880s was also the final one.

"Tappin kella", the final call, featured a conversation between Topi Manner, CEO of Elisa (Finland's only remaining major telecom provider still with fixed line copper lines), and Jarkko Saarimaki (Director General, FINLAND Post), reminiscing about the good old land line phone days – with Manner sharing stories of how he used to call back to his home each week as a teenager in London in the mid-1980s on a phone he'd arranged in advance. The two also discussed future mobile telecommunication technologies and finished up with a casual "kuulemiin" (Finnish for "speak later" — sound like good bye to me!!).

Yes, Finland was one of the pioneers to adopt the telephone. In the 1960s Finland ranked 7th in Europe for the total number of landline subscription telephones per person. By early/mid 1990s, fixed line subscription landline telephones were at their highest point (in homes of Finnish citizens). Since then the traditional landline telephone business has been shrinking due to the emergence of technology — particularly with mobile telephone technologies. So it is highly appropriate that one of the founders of mobile phone technologies (Nokia) would see their home country of Finland become the first nation in the world to completely lose its entire landline telephone system.