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EVERYTHING'S UP TO DATE IN HELSINKIOn a blustery winter day in Helsinki, Finnish telecom experts are racing to wire the most technologically advanced sports arena in the world. Every nook and cranny at the $60 million Hartwall Arena is rigged for high-speed communications, including dozens of ''smart seats'' equipped with 155-megabit Internet connections and concession stands that won't accept real money, only electronic cash cards. While the rest of the world tinkers and putters, Finland has infused cutting-edge telecom technology into every corner of its economy. This country of 5 million people has the highest penetration of wireless phones in the world--30%, vs. 17% in the U.S.--and the highest rate of Internet usage, 6%. Its phone network is 100% digital, and a steady stream of new services are tried here first, from wireless Internet Webcasting to electronic cash systems. ''No one is making a lot of money on it, but everyone is in the stream,'' says Patti Packalen, CEO of publisher Aamulehti Group. The credit goes to deregulation. Finland's wide-open phone market is home to 49 competitors--and some of the lowest calling rates in the world. Tantalized by cheap technology, Finnish businesses are gobbling up new technologies. Helsinki Telephone Co. aims to help forge a digital economy by building a virtual-reality, three-dimensional replica of Helsinki by 2000--accurate to within 10 to 20 centimeters--that anyone could use to test new cyberservices. Finnish entrepreneurs are already designing 21st century information services. Web-development company Digia has created Web sites for one of Finland's largest power companies that make it possible for each household to monitor electricity costs in real time. Oulu-based Elektrobit pioneered a technology to use wireless phones as a replacement for big, complex office systems. Helsinki Media Co.'s Startel unit delivers financial info to Internet-connected mobile phones for $40 a month. And kids attending the little red schoolhouse in Ruskela tap into high-speed wireless networks to take virtual visits to a reindeer farm in Lapland. Business execs revel in the new technology. Telecom Finland Chief Financial Officer Kaj-Erik Relander carries a cellular phone/Internet communicator that he says ''makes me 30% more efficient.'' He uses it to discreetly type a message to his secretary on the tiny keyboard during dinner in an elegant restaurant. He sends the E-mail and then glances at a fax that has just arrived on his phone's screen. If you think all this technology just makes it possible to spend more time working, think again: That fax is confirmation of Relander's summer sailboat rental.
By Gail Edmondson in Helsinki
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Updated June 15, 1997 by bwwebmaster
Copyright 1997, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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