Elisa

The 1960´s

The 1960s

In 1960, there were 143,000 telephone subscribers.
The era of economic development began in Finland. The country prospered and the real income per capita increased. People from the countryside moved into the sphere of industry and services. There was a great demand for telephones. At the end of the decade, as many telephones were linked up to the Association's network as ever before in its entire history.

HPY's international cooperation increased in the early 1960's – thanks to the establishment of its own research center, internationalisation of telecommunications, and training of supervisors. The summits organised in Finland, such as SALT and CSCE, issued great challenges.
Transistors set electron tubes aside. Call transmission capacity in the line network was increased by digital PCM technology (PCM = pulse code modulation) to satisfy the huge demand. The first semi-electronic systems were installed in exchanges. Data transmission took its first steps - the first commercial connection was installed in the retail group of Kesko in 1964.

At the end of the 60's HPY decided to start marketing data services. There ensued a bitter dispute over jurisdiction with the National Board of Post and Telecommunications, which interpreted the data transmissions technology as part of telegraph activities, which it had the monopoly.
In 1962, the first commercial telecom satellite, Telstar, was launched to space. Satellites provided more capacity to trans-continental telecommunications. Telstar had 12 transmission channels, for international TV and phone connections, among others.

Answering machines arrived, as did touchtone phones in certain exchanges and switchboards in 1969.

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