Elisa, Sonera, DNA + regional ones. Elisa has the widest coverage, they havebeen buying out regional ones.
If you exclude MVNO's most countries have pretty similar number of mobile and broadband providers.
There are three physical countrywide LTE/3G/GSM networks in Finland: Telia/Sonera, Elisa and DNA. They then carry some MVNOs so there are more places where you can actually buy a SIM card than just these three.
Most people buy their phone here separately from the operator contract, so there are much fewer contract phones than e.g. in the U.S. Thus there is competition for phone sales, and competition for operator contracts, separately.
Telia/Sonera is the former state monopoly, Elisa grew out of Helsinki telephone association/company, and DNA is a merger of small countryside operators. Sonera has the best coverage throughout the country, DNA curiously enough has the best coverage in urban areas.
Of course, we can still always say that there is not enough competition between operators, as their prices tend to converge. Consumer advocates usually have only two kinds of messages: either all prices are nearly the same ("competition is not working!") or there are large disparities in prices ("competition is not working!").
Oddly enough many countries somehow seem to devolve to the magic number of "3" which is usually the one old state run company, the "1990's/1980's" deregulation one, and the newer one which is also in many countries a consortium of several 2nd wave players that had to consolidate to survive.
Clearly there are some other forces driving cellular communication in Finland other than only having 3 carriers.
The difference is that Finland has effective competition, whereas other countries have nominal competition.
A good and effective regulative authority has definitely helped, but the fact that Finnish operators actually both invest and compete makes for all the difference.
The 4G+ 300mbit plans from Elisa cost 60 Euros a month without a device, I haven't seen anything so far that is that unusual.
Consumer prices.
Geographical coverage.
Unlimited and unrestricted usage.
> If you look at the actual coverage map Finland isn't considerably better than most countries including the US, 4G+ is available in a few hotspots only, and the LTE and 3G coverage is pretty similar.
How did you perform this comparison? I find this claim very unlikely to be correct.
> The 4G+ 300mbit plans from Elisa cost 60 Euros a month without a device, I haven't seen anything so far that is that unusual
This is incorrect.
DNA 300M plan is 30€ per month. Elisa and Sonera are 50€ Per month. All plans without a contract, quotas or limits.
300M are premium flagship plans with a premium price. 100M plan are like 15€.
Starter plans with 50 minutes of talk time and 0,25 Mbps of uncapped, unlimited and unrestricted usage are free on Sonera's network.
What other country comes even close?
There are five mobile operators in Finland: Elisa, Sonera, DNA, Ålcom and Ukko Mobile.
There are lots and lots of wireline operators.
> If you exclude MVNO's most countries have pretty similar number of mobile and broadband providers.
There are similar numbers of mobile operators in most countries because there is only so much spectrum to go around. However there is a great deal of difference in the amount of wireline broadband providers per country.
Sorry still counting 3, as Alcom and Ukko don't really "count" Alcom is a regional operator for the Aland islands this isn't unusual.
Don't know about Ukko or what they cover, can't even figure out if they are an MVNO or not their wikipedia entry says that they operate LTE 31 which makes them sound like a rural/remote region operator since that's what most of these low bands are used for.
If they indeed operate on the LTE 31 band this also means they are a speciality carrier which also means they have to provide you with their own devices since I'm not aware of any mass market consumer device which supports B31.
And a quick look on their website does seem to suggest that they provide cellular internet and speciality connections to mostly remote areas, mostly through roaming and partnerships (MVNO) with other cellular providers.
EDIT: You can count Ukko out completely they do not provide voice at all not to mention that paying 85 Euros on a 12 month contract for 3-10 Mbit/s without a device is laughable.
http://www.ukkoverkot.fi/tuotteet/?lang=en
>There are similar numbers of mobile operators in most countries because there is only so much spectrum to go around. However there is a great deal of difference in the amount of wireline broadband providers per country.
The cellular spectrum especially in regards to 4G LTE channels is pretty damn large, and most countries started with more than 3-4 cellular providers they just had decades of consolidation since then.
Ukko is an MNO, not an MVNO. They hold a national license for the 450 MHz band which they use to provide data services in all of Finland.
Here is their coverage map: http://www.ukkoverkot.fi/kuuluvuus/
> If they indeed operate on the LTE 31 band this also means they are a speciality carrier which also means they have to provide you with their own devices since I'm not aware of any mass market consumer device which supports B31
Correct.
> The cellular spectrum especially in regards to 4G LTE channels is pretty damn large, and most countries started with more than 3-4 cellular providers they just had decades of consolidation since then.
Not all LTE bands are available in all countries.
That's something which is easy to change if there was a will, LTE bands mostly "replace" the older mish mash of bands and technologies that were deployed in various countries. This is why the both cover the GSM bands as well as TDMA/CDMA and even oddities like iDEN. So for the most part they are an easy transition, if you as a carrier already "owned" the rights for band X you usually would not have to secure a bid for that band again to use it for 4G/LTE.
With almost 70 bands you could easily push towards more carriers, however the competition and market forces seem to push towards consolidation since they buy in and the maintenance costs for the infrastructure are so high and overall margins could potentially be quite slim, looking at AT&T and Verizon their margins are only around 10-12% on average.
You don't really believe that, now do you?
Clearing the usage of new frequency bands is a huge regulatory undertaking involving multiple countries. It takes years and massive effort even when there is a very strong will and a clear need.
Tell that to somebody who would have to rely on satellite if it were not for Ukko. And it's not like you can't run your choice of VoIP over that.