INTERNET ACCESS SNOWBALLS IN WIRED FINLAND

Forget about pay phones in Finland. Since nearly a third

of Finland's five million people carry mobile phones and the number increases

by 27 percent a year, fixed phones are becoming something quaint, almost a

relic.

Indeed, even one-dimensional mobile phones are becoming a bit

old-fashioned. The latest cellular phones now send e-mail and permit users to

wander through the newsgroups and World Wide Web sites of the Internet.

Nokia's new 9000-model communicator, a phone and computer hybrid no bigger

than the bulky cellular phones of a decade ago, allows Internet access to a

user who may be riding a train, sitting in a cafe or standing at a street

corner.

That such a device would be produced by a Finnish manufacturer like Nokia

Oy is fitting: This Nordic country is the most wired nation in the world.

Banking, shopping and socializing are migrating from the real world into the

virtual one at a faster rate in Finland than anywhere else; the habits that

distinguish hightechnology centers like Silicon Valley in Northern California

or Redmond, Wash., are a na tional phenomenon in Finland.

Why this country, at one time a neutral buffer state between the

northwestern border of the old Soviet Union and the capitalist centers of

Northern Europe, became a microcosm of an electronic future is unclear. The

possible reasons being cited include the country's high educational levels,

the government's spending in basic research and the long winter nights.

Whatever the reasons, the facts are striking: According to the latest

monthly figures released last week by John Quarterman, president of Matrix

Information and Directory Services, a research firm based in Austin, Texas,

there are 62 Internet-connected computers per thousand residents in Finland,

twice the rate in the United States. In the last year, Finland outstripped the

former world leader, Iceland (population 270,000), which now has 42 per

thousand people.

David Farber, a professor of telecommunications at the University of

Pennsylvania, recently wrote: ''Technically Finland is a leader in the

telecommunications area. They have the first public Internet access capability

and have the highest penetration of cellular in the world.''

Lottery tickets

Finns use the Internet to chat about their problems and to research

academic subjects. They use electronic ''wallets'' and so-called electronic

cash systems to order postage stamps, pick lottery tickets, bank, play

roulette in an electronic amusement arcade, do their shopping in supermarkets,

read newspapers and attend courses given hundreds of miles away.

As in much of the United States, universities offer Internet access free to

all students, as do public libraries, which dedicate one or more connected

computers for an hour to anyone who requests it. And municipalities, computer

makers and the government all subsidize the campaign to offer as many ties to

computers and cellular phones as possible.

''There is something decidedly unusual about Finland,'' Quarterman wrote

via e-mail. ''Perhaps it comes from being between the first and second worlds

for all those years; perhaps from a high standard of living and high literacy,

perhaps even from needing something to do during those long cold nights. I

don't know the cause, but the phenomenon is undeniable.''

Quarterman also pointed out that the five Nordic countries -- Finland,

Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark- were among the top 15 countries in terms

of having the most Internet-connected computers per capita.

''Because Finland is so small, homogenous and has a high level of

education, Internet use is becoming a part of the democratic access in society

to government and institutions,'' said Minna Puirava, a project manager in

marketing studies at the University of Tampere, a city about 100 miles north

of Helsinki. ''Of course, America has an electronic culture that is very

advanced but it is concentrated in small groups of the population. Here it is

really widespread.''

Finland's education minister, Olli-Pekka Heinonen, 33, said proudly in an

interview that in less than two years the country would be spending 2.9

percent of its gross national product, on research and development in the

computer field. This year, he said, the government and private industry

together will spend 2 billion Finnish markka ($425 million) to educate 600,000

students and 400,000 adults on the use of the Internet.

All schools online

By the year 2000, he said, all of the country's 5,000 schools will be

hooked to the Internet. The objective: ''A society where competence is based

on knowledge, know-how and the creation of new economic wealth,'' Heinonen

said.

At the moment, nearly 30 percent of Finnish homes have portable computers,

and about 60 percent of the population has access to the Internet either at

home, at work, or through a local institution like a library, according to

Johan Helsingus, chief executive of Eunet Finland Oy, one of Europe's largest

Internet service providers.

Merita, Finland's largest bank, already provides more than three million

account holders with highly secure electronic access by computers.

Telecom Finland, which is government-owned and the country's largest phone

company, is beginning a limited Internet telephone service -allowing customers

to talk to each other through their computer terminals. Since most such calls

would be made through local telephone numbers, the procedure promises in the

long run to become the cheapest way to call anyone.

Laboring with a mood as dark as a Finnish December afternoon, Dotty, 32, a

recovering alcoholic who requested that his last name not be used, surfed the

Internet for an hour one day last month. Ever since he learned how to get on

the Internet barely three months ago, he has come to the stately

Rikhardinkadun public library three hours a week to chat with other recovering

alcoholics halfway around the globe.

Why not do his chatting locally, at Alcoholics Anonymous? ''Oh, I do that,

too, but the Net is different,'' he answered, barely shifting his eyes off the

computer screen. ''On the Net, feelings are true. For me, it is more about

self-help: a different kind of therapy.''

That same evening on a recent Thursday in another public library at the

Helsinki suburb of Vantaa, a woman was glued to a computer in the airy atrium

downstairs as she searched the Internet. Upstairs on the second floor,

Jean-Erik Ekberg, 27, was about to start a class on how to use the Internet,

in a room filled with computers donated by industry and the municipality.

Snowall effect

According to various estimates corroborated by universities, Internet

providers and telephone companies, 11 percent of the population, or more than

570,000 Finns between the ages of 14 and 74, have used the Internet in the

last three months -- a 21 percent increase in the last three months.

''It's a snowball reaction that is fast changing people's lives,'' said

Petri Vuorimaa, director of the Digital Media Institute at Tampere University.

Helsingus, chief executive of Eunet Finland Oy, said: ''In my company,

staff is wired 24 hours a day. When people get up they start chatting. Two

weeks ago, I asked my secretary to get someone on the phone and her answer

was, 'Oh, he just stepped into the shower,''' he chuckled. ''But this is no

joke. Being wired all the time is the shape of the future.''