Telecommunications in

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

is a diversified market.

Submarine connectivity

Current internet and telephone services rely on

submarine communications cables A submarine communications cable is a cable laid on the sea bed between land-based stations to carry telecommunication signals across stretches of ocean and sea. The first submarine communications cables laid beginning in the 1850s carried tel ...

for external traffic, with a total capacity of 60.2Tbit/s

Current

FARICE-1 FARICE-1 is a submarine communications cable connecting Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Scotland. The cable has been in use since January 2004 and is 100% owned by the Icelandic state. The cable had an initial design capacity of 720 Gbit/s and ...

, 2 fiber pairs, with lit 11 Tbit/s to the United Kingdom and the Faroe Islands laid in 2003 * DANICE, 4 fiber pairs, with lit 36.4 Tbit/s to Denmark, laid in 2009. * Greenland Connect, 2 fiber pairs, with lit 12.8 Tbit/s to

Newfoundland and Labrador Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic Canada, Atlantic region. The province comprises t ...

, Canada and

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland i ...

, laid in 2009.

Former

CANTAT-3 CANTAT-3 was the third Canadian transatlantic telecommunications cable, in regular operation from 1994 to 2010, carrying 3 x 2.5 Gbit/s between Canada and Europe. It branches to both Iceland and the Faroe Islands. It is out of normal service for ...

, 3 fiber pairs, with capacity of 7.5 Gbit/s to Denmark, Germany,

Faroe Islands The Faroe Islands ( ), or simply the Faroes ( fo, Føroyar ; da, Færøerne ), are a North Atlantic island group and an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. They are located north-northwest of Scotland, and about halfway bet ...

and Canada (1994-2009) * SCOTICE, coaxial cable, to Faroe Islands onto Scotland, 32 telephone circuits (1961-1987) * ICECAN, coaxial cable, to Greenland onto Canada, 24 telephone circuits (1961-1987) * Great Northern Telegraph Co.,

Seyðisfjörður Seyðisfjörður () is a town in the Eastern Region of Iceland at the innermost point of the fjord of the same name. The town is located in the municipality of Múlaþing. A road over Fjarðarheiði mountain pass (elevation ) connects Seyðisfjö ...

to Faroe Islands onto Shetland Islands to UK (1906-1962)

Under Construction

* IRIS, 6 fiber pairs, with 108 Tbit/s initial capacity to Galway, Ireland, due to be laid summer 2022.

Services

Internet

Data centres

* THOR Data Center ehf * DataCell ehf * Verne Global
Basis ehf

Internet service providers

The largest

Internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privat ...

s in Iceland: #

Síminn Síminn hf. (Iceland Telecom), previously named ''Landssíminn'' and ''Póstur og Sími,'' is an Icelandic telecommunications company. It offers communication services for both private and corporate clients, including mobile (2G/3G/4G/5G), landline ...

(Síminn hf) #

Vodafone Iceland Vodafone Iceland is an Icelandic telecommunications company owned by Sýn. Although the company carries the Vodafone brand and trademark, Vodafone Group owns no interest in the company, but rather franchises the brand and associated advertising ...

( Sýn hf) # Nova (Nova hf) # Hringiðan (Hringiðan ehf / Vortex Inc) # Hringdu (Hringdu ehf)

Internet hosting service

Iceland has numerous

internet hosting service An Internet hosting service is a service that runs servers connected to the Internet, allowing organizations and individuals to serve content or host services connected to the Internet. A common kind of hosting is web hosting. Most hosting provi ...

s: * (1984 ehf) *

Advania Advania is a Nordic information technology service corporation headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. The company is the largest in its field in Iceland and the 9th largest in the Nordic countries. Advania has corporate clients in the public and pr ...

(Advania ehf) * (Davíð og Golíat ehf)
FlokiNET
(FlokiNET ehf) *

(Síminn hf) * (Netmiðlar ehf) * (Netvistun ehf) * (Nethönnun ehf)
TechSupport á Íslandi
(TechSupport á Íslandi ehf) * (Tölvuþjónustan Geymir sf) *

( Sýn hf) *

Vortex In fluid dynamics, a vortex ( : vortices or vortexes) is a region in a fluid in which the flow revolves around an axis line, which may be straight or curved. Vortices form in stirred fluids, and may be observed in smoke rings, whirlpools in ...

(Hringiðan ehf)

Internet exchange point

Iceland has an

internet exchange point Internet exchange points (IXes or IXPs) are common grounds of IP networking, allowing participant Internet service providers (ISPs) to exchange data destined for their respective networks. IXPs are generally located at places with preexisting ...

called the Reykjavik Internet Exchange (RIX).

Mail

Print

Daily newspapers Daily or The Daily may refer to: Journalism * Daily newspaper, newspaper issued on five to seven day of most weeks * ''The Daily'' (podcast), a podcast by ''The New York Times'' * ''The Daily'' (News Corporation), a defunct US-based iPad new ...

* Morgunblaðið

Free daily newspapers Free newspapers are distributed free of charge, often in central places in cities and towns, on public transport, with other newspapers, or separately door-to-door. The revenues of such newspapers are based on advertising. They are published at d ...

Fréttablaðið ''Fréttablaðið'' ( en, The Newspaper) is a free Icelandic newspaper. It is distributed five days per week. History and profile ''Fréttablaðið'' was established in 2001. It was originally owned primarily by the media group ''365''. The paper ...

Weekly and bi-weekly Newspapers

* DV * Viðskiptablaðið * Bændablaðið * Stundin

English Language Newspapers

The Reykjavík Grapevine ''The Reykjavík Grapevine'' is an English language Icelandic magazine and online newspaper based in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavík. Its target audience primarily consists of foreigners, immigrants, international students, young Icelanders ...

Radio

Public broadcasters:

RÚV Ríkisútvarpið (RÚV) (pronounced or ) ( en, 'The Icelandic National Broadcasting Service') is Iceland's national public-service broadcasting organization. Operating from studios in the country's capital, Reykjavík, as well as regional cent ...

Rás 1 Rás 1 (; ''Channel 1'') is an Icelandic radio station belonging to and operated by Ríkisútvarpið (RÚV), Iceland's national public service broadcaster. Broadcast throughout Iceland on FM (92.4 and 93.5 MHz in Reykjavík), via satellite ...

Rás 2 Rás 2 (''Channel 2'') is an Icelandic radio station belonging to the National Icelandic Broadcasting Service, RÚV. Launched on 1 December 1983, it is currently the highest-rated radio station in Iceland, with a schedule composed chiefly of ne ...

= Commercial broadcasters

= *

Bylgjan Bylgjan (''The Wave'') is an Icelandic radio station, run by the media company Sýn. Launched in 1986, it was the first privately owned radio station in Iceland. Bylgjan is broadcast throughout the country from a network of FM transmitters (98. ...

* FM 957

Telephone

Landline

As of 2018 there are 75,716

landline A landline (land line, land-line, main line, home phone, fixed-line, and wireline) is a telephone connection that uses metal wires or optical fiber telephone line for transmission, as distinguished from a mobile cellular network, which uses ...

s in use in

of which 73,361 are

PSTN The public switched telephone network (PSTN) provides infrastructure and services for public telecommunication. The PSTN is the aggregate of the world's circuit-switched telephone networks that are operated by national, regional, or local teleph ...

. ISDN 2B and 30B subscriptions make up 1,971 and 384 respectively. The number of landlines in Iceland has been slowly decreasing since their peak in 2001 at 196,528. Meanwhile, the number of VoIP subscriptions have been rising, from 58,311 in 2016 to 76,122 in 2018. 2018 was the first year that VoIP subscriptions surpassed PSTN subscriptions.

, the operator of the POTS network has indicated that a complete shut down of the POTS network is ongoing and is due to be completed in 2022. Existing landline customers will be transitioned over to VoIP services. Source: Statistics Iceland
statice.is

Mobile

As of 2010 there are 341,077 active

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe the protocols for second-generation ( 2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile devices such ...

( 2G) and

UMTS The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a third generation mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. Developed and maintained by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), UMTS is a component of the In ...

( 3G) subscriptions in use in Iceland. In 2010, all NMT ( 1G) networks were shut down. Nova was first to offer 4G followed by

. 5G services were launched in 2020 by Nova, followed by

. 2G services are due to be shut down in 2024 and 3G in 2025. Source: Statistics Iceland
statice.is

Telephone calling

Source: Statistics Iceland
statice.is

Text messaging

Telephone numbers

There are no area codes in Iceland, and all telephone numbers have seven digits. The

international dialling code Country calling codes or country dial-in codes are telephone number prefixes for reaching telephone subscribers in the networks of the member countries or regions of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The codes are defined by the ...

is +354. Due to the Icelandic naming system, people are listed by their first name in the

telephone directory A telephone directory, commonly called a telephone book, telephone address book, phonebook, or the white and yellow pages, is a listing of telephone subscribers in a geographical area or subscribers to services provided by the organization that ...

, and not by their last name (which is usually patronym, or, rarely, a

matronym A matronymic is a personal name based on the given name of one's mother, grandmother, or any female ancestor. It is the female equivalent of a patronymic. Around the world, matronymic surnames are far less common than patronymic surnames. In s ...

Television

Television in Iceland began in September 1966. Source: Statistics Iceland
statice.is

References

External links

Reykjavik Internet Exchange
{{Telecommunications in Europe