Erillisverkot has been producing safe and secure nationwide Virve services based on its own Tetra radio network since 2002. All public safety authorities use Virve actively and jointly. The smooth cooperation between the Finnish safety authorities received a lot of attention and praise, especially towards the end of the year.

The use volumes of Virve services have stabilised at about two million group communications and 70 million short messages per week.

In recent years, the largest growth in Virve subscriptions has come from social and health services and Nordic subscriptions. At the end of 2024, there were approximately 55,000 subscriptions to the public authority radio network. The sectors with the largest number of connections are rescue services, social and health services, the police and the Finnish Defence Forces.

Since 2020, we have been building broadband Virve 2 services alongside the current Virve services in cooperation with our strategic partners Elisa, Ericsson and Airbus. In 2024, we completed functionalities in Virve 2 that are similar to the current Virve, which enabled us to start functional testing. The aim is to complete the customers’ transition to Virve 2 services by the end of 2028.

The Virve 2 services are part of the public safety network operations, and in 2024, the decision to deploy the safety network was made for the Virve 2 terminal device service, the Virve 2 group video call service and, with regard to the Virve 2 applications, Virve 2 Tutka (“Radar”).

The number of Virve 2 data subscriptions increased significantly, and functional testing of Virve 2 telephone subscriptions began. Testing was also started for the national roaming in Virve 2.

Senop Oy was selected as the supplier of the terminal device lifecycle service through a public procurement process. The contract term is seven years.

We continued to invest in contingency planning for the Virve 2 services, and we purchased significantly more transferable backup power units, for example.

In November, Nordic public safety operators (DSB/Norway, MSB/Sweden and Erillisverkot/Finland) signed a memorandum of understanding to deepen Nordic cooperation in the transition to shared broadband public safety networks.

In 2025, the supply and market of terminal devices suitable for Virve 2 will grow significantly, and terminal devices and additional devices needed for the demanding use of the Finnish safety authorities will enter the market. We expect the testing of Virve 2 services to accelerate and the deployment of Virve 2 services to increase.

Erillisverkot operates as a high contingency network operator for the customers of the public safety network (“Tuve”) by producing network and infrastructure services in accordance with the Government Decree on information security. The business is based on established and efficient operating models and processes. These help to ensure operations in normal conditions, during disruptions in normal conditions and in emergency conditions.

In 2023, the new information system platform and its first information systems were taken into production. System migrations continued in 2024. The aim is to create an overall system that supports digitalisation. The ERP system is used in all phases from customer order to delivery and in the maintenance of services. The implemented system also enables self-service functionalities for the customers, new customer service functionalities as well as advanced reporting. In 2024, the deployment of a new online information system was prepared on the same platform.

Network and technology development continued according to the long-term plan. The development programme addresses customers’ growing capacity needs and improves the quality, contingency and security of services. One key achievement was the decommissioning of the SDH (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy) network, which was completed faster than planned in autumn 2024. The project was completed one year ahead of the original schedule. The decommissioning of old technology improves the energy efficiency of Erillisverkot. With this and other development measures, we can offer new services more cost-effectively to customers. In the core network, we can produce 10 Gbit/s and 100 Gbit/s connections for our customers’ needs.

The coverage of the service platform and new customer interface points were implemented to the extent and within the schedule agreed with the customers. The extended use ensures comprehensive and secure data communications for all users in a cost-effective manner. Secure and reliable data connections are a key prerequisite for customers of the public safety network.

The properties business of Erillisverkot and the services related to the renting and maintenance of underground colocation centres and business premises are managed by Leijonaverkot, a subsidiary of Erillisverkot. The total area of the premises it manages is 80,000 m², and the premises are located across Finland.

Underground colocation centres are the core of Leijonaverkot’s property portfolio. The colocation centres house telecommunications production, data centres and premises as well as the infrastructure serving these. Certified services, duplicated systems and continuous testing ensure business continuity and security. Particular attention has been paid to the energy efficiency and zero-emission operation of the properties. Investments to develop these continued.

Leijonaverkot’s customer base continued to expand. One of the most important reasons is the security situation, which has prompted companies and authorities to prepare even more carefully for the future. Companies are aware of the need to ensure the continuity of their critical operations under secure conditions. This is particularly reflected in the increased demand for carefully secured facilities that we can offer to both personnel and ICT systems. Spatial investments related to safety and contingency planning have become a key part of the strategies of companies and authorities.

The company’s office buildings are also special properties where particular attention has been paid to security.

Production development proceeded as planned, with particular emphasis on improving energy efficiency, continuity management, physical security and building automation. More attention was also paid to the security of the data processing environment.

In January, Leijonaverkot sold its shares in Kyberleijona Oy to Suomen Erillisverkot Oy.

In December, Leijonaverkot acquired an office building in Jyväskylä. A new real estate company, KOy Jyväskylä Vapaudenkatu 49, was established for the transaction. The building will be extensively renovated in spring 2025.

In December, Leijonaverkot also sold two of its properties.

In 2024, there was a significant change in the secure cloud service (“Turvapilvi”) when Erillisverkot chose Fujitsu Finland as its partner for the production and development of the secure cloud’s technical platform. In the procurement, technical personnel were transferred from Erillisverkot to the partner, who will produce, together with Fujitsu’s extensive pool of experts, the maintenance, development and expert services of the secure cloud for end customer projects, among other things.

After the initial struggles of coordinating the processes, the change management and customer ticket processing had a good start, and processing times were significantly shortened.

One significant challenge for the secure cloud – as for other IT capacity producers – was the licencing and pricing changes resulting from Broadcom’s VMWare acquisition, which caused work in both procurement and redesign at the system level. The multiple increases in licence prices are causing cost pressures in the otherwise tight economic situation.

The fixed-term integration decision for the secure cloud’s security network operations was extended in 2024, and in our self-assessments, we have found compliance to be at a good level and development measures are being implemented as planned. In addition, we are building a new cloud service platform solution that will replace the old secure cloud platform in order to guarantee the service lifecycle. In 2025, we will apply for a continuation of the current secure cloud integration decision and a completely new integration decision for the new secure cloud platform. The new secure cloud platform will offer the same TL4 level data processing environment as the current solution, and it will also be assessed by an external assessment body.

With the new secure cloud service platform and partnership, we will be able to better meet customers’ requirements in terms of cost efficiency, scalability and the ability to implement hybrid solutions as well as the availability of expert services.

In 2024, the expected technology renewal of the Krivat situational awareness service was launched by tendering the application supplier to implement the renewal. At the end of the year, the tendering was in its final stages, and the project agreement with the new application supplier is expected to be signed at the beginning of 2025. We want to involve Krivat’s end users in the reform as extensively as possible. The first step was a survey conducted at the end of 2024, targeted at all users, which mapped out not only the development ideas of users, but also their usage habits.

Autumn 2024 was stormy, and the most impactful was storm Jari, which struck Finland on 20–21 November and was one of the most destructive storms in recent years. Krivat was particularly busy during storm Jari: several additional weather reports were organised and situational information was shared between operators across regional and industry boundaries.

In addition, Krivat reached a new record in the number of active usernames: in December 2024, there were usernames in a total of more than 70 customer organisations from different industries.

Through our subsidiary, Johtotieto Oy, we continued to offer location information and joint mapping services for land, air and submarine cables and pipes nationally. Preventing damage to vital functions in society has always been our core competence. The unstable geopolitical situation has deteriorated further in recent years, which was also increasingly reflected in our mission to protect critical infrastructure.

We continued to develop our service concept. The use of digital services continued to increase. Increasing information security also played a key role in 2024. The number of customers grew with several network operators, and Telia became our latest new customer near the end of the year.

The strong nationwide construction of fibre optic networks was reflected in Johtotieto as a historically busy excavation season. Our expertise was utilised in many infrastructure construction sectors. According to forecasts, the construction of fibre optics will continue actively for at least a couple of years.

Erillisverkot’s operations play a major role in society and affect several stakeholders. We want to engage in an active and open dialogue with our customers and other stakeholders. Going forward, we want to be an even more influential social operator and a thought leader in ICT services for critical security operators.

We actively organise stakeholder events of all sizes. In 2024, we organised an event on the service development phase for the senior management of Virve 2 user organisations, among others. We also organised our own webinar for our customers on the theme of customers and technology. We also participated in our customers’ own events and ICT and security trade fairs.

In addition to events and meetings, Erillisverkot actively communicates through many channels, such as websites, social media, newsletters and other customer and stakeholder communications.

In 2024, the brand renewal started in 2023 was completed. The brand manual was implemented in the spring through extensive alteration work. We defined the brand as an image associated with Erillisverkot, a part of the strategy that appeals to emotions, which is reflected, for example, in how people approach the company and what is said about it “behind our backs”. The implementation of the strategy is part of brand building, which means that each employee creates the brand in their own daily work. The image of Erillisverkot is formed by daily actions at the workplace, whether through customer encounters, internal meetings or supervisory work or, for example, external marketing and communications. A strong brand attracts and engages customers, employees and other stakeholders.

We started reporting on our lobbying activities targeted at ministries and Parliament to the Finnish Transparency Register. Our lobbying activities were particularly focused against the cutting of price and deficit support of public safety network Virve.

Due to Erillisverkot’s special role and position in society, we receive requests for opinions related to, for example, various security and public authority network questions and other topical matters in the industry. We prepare each statement and opinion carefully. For Erillisverkot, it is important that the statements are in line with the company’s special purpose and business policies, and that the communication is clear, consistent and based on facts.

There are several channels for stakeholders to communicate their critical concerns. Stakeholders also have access to a reporting channel for reporting suspected misconduct. Concerns arising from the customer experience survey have been addressed by the Group’s management.

Customer work was reorganised as part of the more extensive organisational reform of Erillisverkot. Customer accounts are managed centrally, and the strategic focus of the operations is “Impactful services”. The Customer accounts department also operates and manages the customer service and Virve’s main use services.

Erillisverkot conducted an annual customer experience survey in September and October among 309 respondents. The number of respondents decreased slightly, but the reliability of the results is still good from the point of view of response rates and the time between using the services and responding.

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) decreased to 35 points (48 in 2023). Compared to 2023, the NPS decreased by 13 points, the number of detractors increased and the number of referrers decreased. Although the change was fairly small on average, we take the decrease seriously. We are worried of the quality of the customer experience and plan measures to improve it again.