RETN lights up new backbone route between Estonia and Latvia

Details: John Tanner; Category: Optical & Fixed Networks; 19 February 2026; 7786 views

International network services provider RETN says it has launched a new fibre backbone route between Estonia and Latvia as part of its broader expansion plan to diversify connectivity between Northern and Central Europe.

RETN said the new Tallinn–Cēsis line, announced on Tuesday, packs additional capacity of up to 40 Tbps. The route also establishes a new core point of presence (PoP) at the Greenergy Data Centre in Tallinn, enabling RETN to deliver its full portfolio of network services locally.

RETN said the Tallinn–Cēsis route also delivers improved backbone resilience by creating an additional terrestrial path between Northern Europe – including Finland and the Nordics – and Central Europe, and reducing dependency on single-fibre suppliers.

The carrier also said the extra capacity provides new DWDM spectrum to support future service growth and rapid traffic rerouting during network disruptions.

In fact, RETN added, that rerouting feature was proven during pre-service testing of the route in late 2025 when a fibre break disrupted the primary backbone serving that route.

RETN engineers shifted live traffic off the disrupted primary backbone onto the Tallinn–Cēsis line, with over 40 DWDM backbone channels spanning multiple European segments successfully rerouted within 60 minutes. RETN said all key performance indicators – including latency and jitter – were maintained during the reroute.

“Modern backbone networks have to be engineered on the assumption that outages are inevitable, therefore, the network design should be resilient from the start”

“The Tallinn–Cēsis route was built as part of a deliberate resilience strategy – adding diversity at both the route and supplier level – so that when a failure occurs, traffic can be shifted quickly without compromising performance,” said RETN CEO Tony O’Sullivan in a statement.