ERR News –  Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas inaugurated a new 3.000 kilometer long data highway between Tallinn and Frankfurt on January 21, to offer significantly better speed and capacity.

The new fiber-optic data channel allows capacity up to 9.6 Tbit/s and is the first encrypted direct connection from Estonia to Central Europe.

The network is built on high-voltage transmission lines and gas pipelines.

Its key nodes are located in Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, Warsaw, Berlin and Frankfurt.

New connections to Dusseldorf, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris and Helsinki will also be built, extening the data pipeline to 4.500 kilometers.

“Data connections are as crucial as transport and energy connections for a country.

Besides security aspects, the new data-highway increases Estonia’s connectivity with Europe and the common market.

The more external connections a country has, the better its organizations’ opportunities are to offer its services in Europe and the world,” Rõivas said.

The new data pipeline is built and coordinated by a communication firm Tele2 Estonia.