Sweden, Finland, and Estonia plan to lay a telecommunications cable between the three countries along the bottom of the Baltic Sea, the Estonian broadcaster ERR reported on Wednesday.
“The project developer and owner of the future infrastructure is GlobalConnect AB, a telecommunications company registered in Sweden. The same company is organizing the surveys necessary for project preparation,” the report states.
The cable will run along the seabed from the Swedish island of Gotland to the Estonian islands of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa, then connect to the Estonian mainland, and finally continue along the seabed to Helsinki.
“In Estonia, the project involves both submarine and terrestrial fiber-optic communication cables,” Tinu Nirk, head of the Communications Markets Department at the Ministry of Justice and Digital Technologies, told ERR. The total length of the terrestrial cable route in Estonia is expected to be 250 km; undersea connections to Finland,
Sweden, and the major islands will add another 300 km.
Construction of the cable will cost approximately EUR40 million, of which EUR15.7 million will be provided by the European Union’s Cohesion Fund.
Currently, there are two communication lines between Estonia and Sweden, and six between Estonia and Finland. However, various cables and pipes have been damaged at sea on multiple occasions in recent years, so a new alternative connection is needed, Nirk stated.
According to him, demand for data transmission is constantly growing, and the new connection will increase data transmission capacity across networks in the Baltic Sea region.
Preparations for the project began in 2025. Cable laying is scheduled for this year and next, and the connection is set to become operational in 2027.
ESTONIA, FINLAND, INFRASTRUCTURE, SWEDEN, telecommunications
