Information technology
Finland is a leading information society in terms of the utilisation of high technology products and communications technology. The World Economic Forum’s Global Information Technology Report 2005-2006, assessing the state of economies’ networked readiness, ranked Finland fifth after the United States, Singapore, Denmark and Iceland.
Mobile phones are particularly popular in Finland. In 1998, Finland became the first country to reach the milestone of 50 mobile phones per hundred inhabitants. Today, there are 91 mobile phones per hundred Finns. Finns are very keen on using the short message service (SMS). In 2004, Finns wrote an astonishing 2.1 billion private text messages. The man behind the SMS is Matti Makkonen, a Finnish pioneer in mobile telephony.
More than two-thirds of Finns between the ages of 15 and 74 use the Internet frequently. Private and public services are available on the Internet which can nowadays be accessed in all schools and libraries. Finns are also used to handling their bank transactions on the Internet. The figure of one million broadband connections was reached in summer 2005. All in all, people feel confident with online services.
Digitalisation is the "in" word in television broadcasting. Every third home now has a digibox and the number continues to grow. In September 2007, all television stations in Finland will switch to solely digital broadcasting.
The Finnish Government has given the development of information society a high priority and has launched an Information Society Programme. The programme is led by Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen. The programme aims to boost competitiveness and productivity, to promote social and regional equality and to improve citizens’ well-being and quality of life throughout effective utilisation of information and communications technologies throughout society.
Virtual Finland: Communication superpower
