8700 kilometers long. Alcatel Submarine Networks, Elettra, Medusa and Orange have just announced the start of construction of the Medusa submarine cable in the Mediterranean Sea. This distance should make it the longest submarine cable in the Mediterranean Sea.
The cable system is to have 16 landing points in the Mediterranean. It must establish connections between Morocco, Portugal, Spain, France, Algeria, Tunisia, Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Egypt. The Medusa Submarine Cable System is a fibre-optic submarine system linking the east to west of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean. It creates a new corridor from Asia to the Atlantic, a real backbone starting from Port Said in Egypt, Lisbon (Portugal) and Casablanca (Morocco).
The Medusa system is based on state-of-the-art open technology (Open Cable) with 24 pairs of optical fibres. The announced minimum throughput capacity is 20Tb/s per fiber pair. The theoretical lifetime of this cable is 25 years.
The total cost of the project is 342 million euros
Elettra (a subsidiary of Orange) is now starting survey operations (seabed sounding). The manufacture and installation of the cable will be spread over 2024 and 2025. Orange must provide landing infrastructure in France, Tunisia and Morocco.
The construction of Medusa is financed by AFR-IX Telecom, Orange and the European Union through a grant under the MIE program (Mechanism for Interconnection in Europe).
Medusa is a private submarine infrastructure operator, managed by the Spanish company AFR-IX Telecom.
On the financing side, the project benefits from an EU grant of 40 million euros. The total cost of the project is 342 million euros.