With competition in broadband still largely defined by speed and price, the widening of DNA's very-high speed DOCSIS 3.0 offering puts it in a strong position to defend its market share against competitor cable and telco rivals.

DNA's principal telco rival, incumbent Teliasonera, has been upgrading its network to fibre to the premises (FTTP), offering 100Mbit/s since September 2009, with the promise of 1Gbit/s since early 2010 (users can still only register their interest in this product). The telco also offers 100Mbit/s via DOCSIS 3.0 (claiming some 0.04m cable broadband subscribers), with standalone prices starting at €39.90 per month.

DNA aggressively grew its share of the Finnish broadband market from 3.5% in Q4 2009 to 9.5% in Q4 2010, following its purchase of Welho. The purchase significantly boosted DNA's position in the cable market, becoming the dominant player with over 60% of cable broadband subscribers by year-end 2010.

However, IHS Screen Digest data shows DOCSIS 3.0 cable uptake is still comparatively limited. Overall, cable only accounted for 14.9% of 1.6m total broadband connections in Finland at year-end 2010, of which less than 1% were DOCSIS 3.0. IHS Screen Digest expects cable broadband to grow to nearly 17% of broadband connections by 2015, and DOCSIS 3.0 to take 20% of these cable connections, equivalent to nearly 0.05m.

DSL connections by comparison account for 79% of the broadband market (1.2m connections), but have been diminishing from a peak of 1.3m connections at year-end 2007. Contributors to the decline in DSL include:

• Subscriber replacement of fixed broadband with mobile: Mobile broadband is gaining traction even in urban areas, growing to 18.4% of all broadband connections at YE 2010, as many consumers are substituting fixed connections entirely in favour of mobile connections, which can work out cheaper given they require no line rental fee
• Competition from cable: cable has continued to grow in terms of connections and market share as DSL has declined.