300000 YUPPIES - MOBILE TELEPHONES IN FINLAND

Surprisingly, the Nordic countries are very clearly in the lead in the development of mobile telephones. Several explanations are possible - economic, technical, geographic or political - but none pinpoints wha t is unique about the Nordic countries. A combination of state legitim acy derived from the welfare state, service-oriented monopolies and so me accidental historical reasons are proposed as an additional explana tion. The story of mobile telephones in Finland is presented, together with a profile of users, based on an open question survey. This shows that the popularity of mobile telephones is based on two quite differ ent reasons: perfect reachability (which implies that a call can be ma de from anywhere, and the receiver is always there, immobile from the point of view of the caller) and a perceived (although quite fallaciou s) immediate intimacy.