Telia has started selling what it calls Finland's first business subscriptions built on 5G Standalone (SA) network slicing, with two plans on offer: Telia Sujuva 5G for mobile connectivity and Telia Sujuva 5G Netti for fixed-wireless broadband.

The operator designed both products for companies whose traffic must stay segregated from general consumer use. Slicing reserves a defined portion of the 5G SA core and radio resources for each subscriber, isolating their data plane and signalling from the public pool.

Telia positions the service at workloads that depend on consistent performance regardless of macro-cell load. List of use cases the operator flags:

• Autonomous transportation
• Drone services
• Remote live media access

Network slicing has moved from 3GPP Release 16 specifications into commercial service at a handful of European operators over the past two years. Finland is one of the more advanced Nordic markets for SA: DNA, Elisa and Telia have each lit up SA cores, and DNA piloted a consumer 5G SA fixed-wireless offer in 2021.

What does the slicing actually deliver?

The technical promise is straightforward. A slice ties together radio resources, transport and a dedicated user-plane function on the 5G core, so an enterprise pays for guaranteed throughput and latency rather than best-effort capacity.

Telia does not publish speeds, latency budgets or SLA figures in the announcement. The carrier also withholds pricing, leaving channel partners and direct sales teams to quote case by case.

Olli Pirttijarvi, director of enterprise business at Telia, framed the commercial pitch in operational terms. Slicing ensures service even when network load fluctuates, he said, anchoring the value claim to reliability rather than peak speed.

How big is the addressable market?

Telecompaper's telebriefing on the launch offered no subscriber forecast and no shipment target. The Finnish enterprise mobility market remains dominated by Telia, Elisa and DNA, with Telia holding roughly a third of mobile subscribers nationally, according to operator filings.

Slicing-based B2B products elsewhere in Europe have so far attracted only hundreds to low thousands of paying lines per operator. Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and Orange have all reported similar early-stage uptake, with industrial and logistics customers taking the bulk of connections.

What standards underpin the offer?

The slice management interfaces follow 3GPP TS 28.530 series, with policy and charging control via TS 23.503. In Finland, the FICORA regulator (now part of Traficom) auctioned 3.5 GHz 5G spectrum in 2020 without slicing-specific obligations, leaving operators free to monetise the feature as a premium B2B service.

Vendor context

Telia Company has worked with Nokia and Ericsson on its 5G SA core and RAN in Finland. The carrier declined to confirm which vendor supplied the slicing orchestration layer for the Sujuva 5G launch. Nokia's anyRAN and NetGuard suite, alongside Erics NFVO and 5G Core, both claim slicing support, but Telia has not disclosed its build of materials.

What to watch next

Two developments will determine whether slicing becomes a meaningful revenue line in Finland. First, Telia's first full quarter of Sujuva 5G sales will reveal whether enterprise buyers accept a price premium for the SLA-style guarantee. Second, competing carriers Elisa and DNA are likely to follow with their own slicing B2B offerings once they secure reference customers in logistics or port automation.

Telia has not set a public timeline for expanding Sujuva 5G beyond its current footprint or for adding new slice profiles tailored to specific verticals.