Televerket

History

19th Century

Kongliga Elektriska Telegraf-Werket was founded in 1853 when the first electric telegraph line was established between Stockholm and Uppsala, and was the government agency for telegraph services. From 1871 the company was known as Kongl. Telegrafverket. The first telephone network in Sweden opened in 1880, as a result of an initiative by former Telegrafverket employees. As telecommunication technology changed, Telegrafverket expanded to include telephone services, but entered the early telephone industry in Sweden as a latecomer. Through securing a national monopoly on long-distance telephone lines, it was able with time to control and take over the local networks of quickly growing private telephone companies. Its network, branded Rikstelefon, was supplied with telephones produced by Swedish telephone manufacturers Ericsson.

20th Century

While the telecommunications industry in Sweden has always been ostensibly open, Telegrafverket effectively monopolised the market with its purchase of the telephone company Stockholms Allmänna in 1918. When Telegrafverket was renamed Televerket in 1953, the parent company and its subsidiaries had a de facto national monopoly because no other companies had the financial or technical resources to compete. Televerket also pioneered mobile telephony in Sweden; it launched Sweden's first manual radiotelephone service, MTA (Mobiltelefonisystem A) in 1956, which was later succeeded by MTB (1962–1983) and MTD (1971–1987). On 1 October 1981, Televerket launched the first fully automatic (1G) mobile phone network in the world, called Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT), which eventually superseded the manual MTA, MTB and MTD networks.

From 1980 onwards Televerket's de facto monopoly was eroded with increasing government liberalisation of the industry, as well as early attempts by private companies, most notably and successfully at that period of time by Kinnevik AB, to dismantle said state-sanctioned telecommunications monopoly through its company Comvik. From 1980 the Riksdag enabled legislation that opened the market to allow competitor's telephones to be connected to the network. In 1988 Televerket's subsidiary company Teli, responsible for the design and manufacture of telephones, ceased production. Also that same year, the administration of Swedish television licences, which had until then also been handled by Televerket, was shifted to Radiotjänst i Kiruna AB.

In the early 1980s, a quirk in Televerket's exchanges inadvertently gave rise to the heta linjen, a telephonic group chat that became especially popular among young people and has since been described as an early form of social media.

In accordance with the deregulation decision of the Riksdag and its Telecommunications Act of 1 July 1993, Televerket was corporatised as Telia AB, thus making Sweden the first European country to deregulate its telecom market.

Televerket in the 21st Century

Telegrafverket and Televerket telephones remain highly collectible, and there is now a market for reconditioned phones that can connect to modern networks. Telia has since merged with the Finnish Sonera, and is now known as Telia Company.

Company Director Generals

Carl Akrell, 1853–1862

Pehr Brändström, 1862–1874

Daniel Nordlander, 1874–1890

Erik Storckenfeldt, 1890–1902

Mauritz Sahlin, 1902–1904

Arvid Lindman, 1904–1907

Herman Rydin, 1907–1927

Adolf Hamilton, 1928–1938

Helge Ericson, 1939–1942

Håkan Sterky, 1942–1965

Bertil Bjurel, 1966–1977

Tony Hagström, 1977–1993