As with the earlier industrialisation process, other circumstances w ere also supportive of growth in the mobile telephone business. The fragmented historical structure of Finnish telecommunications meant there was local strength in network interconnection issues, which are fundamental to mobile systems which initially functioned as access networks to the existing wired infrastructure. The state was part of the Nordic consortium that developed the second-generation Nordic Mobile Telephone standard, upon whose system architecture the third-generation GSM system was built. Nokia was therefore well placed to ride the wave of expansion as the technological shift to the third generation transformed the mobile phone into a mass-market product.