Broadband | 2026-10-28
Erillisverkot has launched FI-Alert, adding mobile phone alerts to Finland’s public warning service.
FI-Alert is based on Cell Broadcast Service (CBS) technology, a standardised technology already in use in several countries. It allows an emergency warning to be targeted precisely at a chosen area and to reach the people in that area quickly. The service is based on an EU directive.
“Our goal was for the final service to be operational before the end of this year,”
says Timo Lehtimäki, CEO of Erillisverkot.
The goal has been met, and from November 2026 emergency warnings will be delivered directly to mobile phones as FI-Alert notifications, in addition to the existing channels. Lehtimäki thanks everyone at Erillisverkot and at the telecommunications operators who took part in delivering the project on a fast schedule.
The role of Erillisverkot was to procure the technical solutions and services required to produce the FI-Alert service. Going forward, Erillisverkot will provide the service to the Ministry of the Interior. The decision to send an emergency warning is always made by a public authority.
Erillisverkot is a special-assignment company wholly owned by the Finnish state. It provides ICT services for critical communications, situational management and the protection of critical infrastructure to organisations that support the security and functioning of society.
“We have long experience of operating at the heart of reliable authority communications and situational awareness, and we have, for example, secure data centres, data communications connections and active lines of dialogue with all operators and security authorities,” Lehtimäki explains.
Fast and precisely targeted emergency warnings
“With CBS technology, messages can be sent quickly to a large number of people when necessary. It differs from text messages in that the messages are sent simultaneously to the devices of all operators’ subscribers within the danger area. Ordinary text messages are sent in a kind of queue, which makes them slower and can congest the system,” Lehtimäki describes.
Sending an emergency warning does not require a subscriber register or recipients’ phone numbers. FI-Alert also requires no app installation or registration, and it works directly on all 4G and 5G devices. Only the oldest devices supporting solely 2G or 3G technology will not receive FI-Alert messages, and efforts will be made to reach their users through other warning channels, such as the 112.fi website, Yle’s website, radio and the 112 Suomi app.
“The CBS service is particularly well suited to exceptional situations, because message distribution does not load mobile networks or other technical parts of the message delivery chain in the same way as, for example, mass sending of targeted text messages. In addition, a CBS message also reaches devices in the target area that use subscriptions from foreign operators, as it does not check the home country of the SIM card or subscription,” Lehtimäki states.
