Estonia coverage

What the Estonia numbers mean

Two numbers matter and only one of them is the one every seller quotes. The typical speed, 95 Mbps, tells you what a good moment looks like.

The tenth percentile, 30 Mbps, is the one that matters. It is the speed in the worst tenth of the day, when the cell above the station is full and everybody around you is on it too. A country with a high median and a low floor is a country that works beautifully right up until the moment you actually need it.

If the trip depends on video calls or tethering, plan around the busy figure rather than the typical one.

What happens in Estonia when the network is busy

Congestion is not a fault, it is a Tuesday evening. The question is what your eSIM can do about it, and for most travel eSIMs the answer is nothing: one wholesale agreement per country, one network, and no way out except buying a second eSIM from somebody else while standing in the street.

Here, Orbislo traffic runs over Telia and Elisa. When the network you are on degrades we move you to another one, mid trip, without you asking, and tell you afterwards rather than interrupting you at the time.

Mobile operators in Estonia

• Telia Eesti: Telia opened Estonia's first public 5G on 11 November 2020, on a handful of streets in Tallinn, Tartu and Pärnu for a few thousand customers, using its existing frequencies before any 5G auction had taken place.
• Telia Eesti: Telia has said it will not start closing its 2G network before 2029. 2G still carries a small share of voice calls and serves card terminals, meters, alarms and cars, while more than 80 percent of Telia's mobile calls already run over 4G.
• Elisa Eesti: To prepare for its 3G switch-off, Elisa added more than 250 new 2G base stations across Estonia and moved most customers onto VoLTE, so older phones keep voice service on 2G while data needs a 4G or 5G device.
• Telia, Elisa, Tele2, STV: The regulator classes four communications companies as providers of vital services: Tele2, Elisa, STV and Telia. In 2025 it recorded nine significant incidents disrupting call or internet services, but no complete communications outage.

Older networks in Estonia

• Telia switched off 3G county by county through 2023, starting in Läänemaa in March and ending in Tartu County on 20 November and Tartu city on 21 November. Its 2G network stayed on for calls from phones without VoLTE.
• Elisa began closing 3G in Rapla County in May 2024 and finished on 25 November 2024 in Tallinn and Harju County. Customers kept 2G, 4G and 5G.
• Tele2 was the last Estonian operator to close 3G. After starting in Rakvere in February 2025, it switched off Rapla, Järva, Jõgeva, Viljandi, Lääne-Viru and Ida-Viru counties on 6 November and Tartu, Valga, Põlva, Võru, Narva and the Peipus shore on 20 November 2025.
• With 3G gone on all three networks, phones without VoLTE can still make calls over 2G, but old USB modems and routers that only support 3G have to be replaced. Tele2 advises checking that VoLTE is switched on in phone settings.

5G in Estonia

• Estonia auctioned three 3410 to 3800 MHz licences in 2022. Elisa won the first on 27 May for 7,206,208 euros, Telia the second on 15 July for 8,500,300 euros, and Tele2 the third unopposed for 1,597,000 euros.
• Each 3.5 GHz licence required a 5G service on at least 3GPP Release 15 within a year, and at least 200 active base stations within two years, no more than 100 of them in Harju County and at least five in every county.
• In the 700 MHz auction that began on 8 November 2022, Elisa, Tele2 and Telia each won two 2x5 MHz licences. Holders must reach 50 percent coverage in each county within two years and 95 percent within four.
• Ida-Viru, Jõgeva, Tartu, Põlva and Võru counties are exempt from the 95 percent 700 MHz target because Russian television broadcasting limits how the band can be used there, so low-band 5G in south-east and north-east Estonia can be thinner.
• Telia launched Estonia's first standalone 5G, branded 5G+, on 8 April 2026 with 5G voice calling (VoNR). At launch only a handful of devices could use it, including the Xiaomi 15T Pro and Nothing Phone 4a models.
• Since 2022 any operator running 5G non-standalone or newer, or providing a vital service, must get a permit from the regulator for the hardware and software in its network, a check that the equipment does not threaten national security.

Network notes for Estonia

• A 2025 consultation found 93 stretches along nine main highways and three railway lines, about 412 km in total, where 5G needs improving. The state has earmarked 18.72 million euros of EU regional funds to build masts along these corridors.
• In the last days of 2025, faults hit four subsea cables linking Estonia to Sweden and Finland and one to Hiiumaa island. A ship with its anchor chain in the water was detained by Finland, yet end users saw no noticeable impact and international links kept working.
• On 25 December 2024 three subsea cables between Estonia and Finland were damaged, two of them owned by Elisa and one by CITIC Telecom. All services and links between the two countries kept working, with no noticeable effect on users.
• Globalstar runs a satellite ground station at Kilingi-Nõmme in south-west Estonia, one of four in Europe relaying Apple's emergency SOS messages, and began expanding it in 2025.
• Close to 2 million SIM holders used mobile service in Estonia at the end of 2025, and about 96,000 customers, 13 percent of internet users, relied on 4G or 5G fixed wireless as their home connection.
• A spot check at the end of 2024 found operators meeting their 5G licence terms. For some operators the 700 MHz coverage maps matched field measurements more than 95 percent of the time, and 3.5 GHz base station counts matched licence conditions.
• Global Connect plans a new cable ring linking Finland, Estonia and Sweden, with 250 km of fibre across Estonian land and 1,250 km laid at sea. The 40 million euro project is due for completion in 2027.