Episode 335 · 2025-06-02 · 52:29 · Original in Finnish
Market leader in five years | Heikki Kaunisto | Negotiator 335
Originally published as “Markkinajohtajaksi 5 vuodessa | Heikki Kaunisto | Neuvottelija 335”
A commercial collaboration with Valokuitunen Oy: the company's five-year rise to market leadership in Finnish fibre, told by its own chief executive. Heikki Kaunisto, a finance director before he took the top job, unpacks the pricing models better than almost anything else published on the industry — why a free fibre installation is a one-off fee spread into monthly charges, why bundling the connection with the data package moves the choice to the seller, and why infrastructure always produces a strong market position, the only question being how thin you can make it. His advice generalises: keep your future options in your own hands.
Core theses
- A free fibre installation is the original one-off fee converted into monthly charges over the coming years.
- Bundling the data package with the connection moves the freedom of choice to the seller, which matters most when fibre delivery takes years.
- Infrastructure worth building only once always produces a strong market position; an open network does not remove it but confines it to the buried fibre.
- Keep your future options in your own hands — the only way to avoid a hook you cannot get off.
Watch and listen
Key moments
- 00:00 — Warren Buffett's 80-year run ended in Omaha
- 00:26 — Heikki Kaunisto and Valokuitunen's five-year run
- 00:48 — The long game and the owners on the way to market leadership
- 01:21 — A fresh start in the fixed network
- 02:10 — Making the data package optional as an edge in a slow-delivery market
- 03:04 — Taking the market, building the organisation, earning customer trust
- 03:28 — Building from nothing while growing at the same time
- 03:49 — Antilooppi's billion-euro growth and the same logic
- 04:11 — The leap in the balance sheet and strategic scaling
- 04:49 — Infrastructure investment demands a robust business model
- 05:14 — What the owners contributed to the foundation
- 06:39 — Mobile subscription cycles and the logic of switching
- 08:14 — The advantages of fibre and the threshold for going back to mobile
- 10:02 — Technology neutrality and why the user experience is what counts
- 11:32 — Bundled deals, price rises and consumer choice
- 13:15 — Layered mobile backup against outages
- 16:05 — Acquiring customers efficiently in sparsely populated areas
- 17:50 — Valokuitunen as market leader
- 19:11 — Comparison with competitors — scale and EBITDA
- 21:03 — Switching to monthly pricing, and the transformation it required
- 23:42 — Faith in 5G fades, the value of fibre rises in sales
- 25:03 — Recruiting into a growth company, and the people it suits
- 28:40 — The effect of publicity and the media's lack of understanding
- 32:02 — Consumers build the infrastructure by their own choices
- 35:58 — Net present value, cash flows and the logic of the decision
- 39:12 — An open network prevents a monopoly position locking in
- 40:44 — The risk of an unused network and a change of owner
- 42:24 — Regulation, the EU's influence and national divergence
- 44:03 — A free market works without central planning
- 45:22 — What the five years achieved, and the next steps
- 46:54 — The rise of AI and growing demand for data transfer
- 48:30 — Fibre's scalability for future experiences
- 50:17 — Business and public customers, and enabling remote work
- 51:52 — Productivity and confidence resting on the connection
Summary
A commercial collaboration with Valokuitunen Oy: the company’s five-year rise to market leadership in Finnish fibre, told by its own chief executive. That is disclosed in the episode itself, and it is worth knowing before the competitor comparisons — they are presented by one of the parties, with nobody from the other side present.
The pricing, unpacked
This is the part worth hearing whoever you buy a connection from. A “free fibre installation” means the original one-off fee has been converted into monthly charges across the coming years; the host’s analogy is buying a car on instalments. Valokuitunen’s own model does not bundle a data package with the connection, on the concrete ground that fibre delivery can take years and a package bought at the start is regretted when the connection finally arrives.
The company’s own history illustrates the same point. It began with a €2,300 one-off fee, found it to be a barrier, and introduced a monthly product in 2022 — which made revenue appear to fall that year although what changed was the pricing model. Today 80–85 per cent of customers choose the monthly option.
What the episode concedes
Kaunisto does not claim his model removes the underlying problem. When infrastructure is worth building only once, a strong market position arises inevitably; the point of an open structure is to confine it to the built fibre and open everything above it to competition. The part that remains is, he says, what society has reason to supervise, as with electricity networks.
From that follows the single best line: keep your future options in your own hands. The host’s formulation is that if you have no alternatives, you have only terms.
Watch
The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: Markkinajohtajaksi 5 vuodessa | Heikki Kaunisto | Neuvottelija 335. A Finnish edition of this episode is published at www.neuvottelija.fi.
In depth
The Neuvottelija AI editions carry a long-form write-up of this episode, with the sponsorship disclosed throughout, the company’s ownership history checked, and the claims that could not be verified independently marked as company-stated: English · suomeksi.
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People and topics
Guests: Heikki Kaunisto
Topics: Finnish Economy & Policy Investing & Markets Leadership & Governance