The telecom interconnection between Greece and Africa takes off

Greece’s Independent’s Power Transmission Operator-IPTO‘s subsidiary Grid Telecom and Telecom Egypt, Egypt’s leading telecommunications organization, are starting the branching to Crete of the large telecommunications cable that will connect most of the countries on the coast of Africa.

According to IPTO, this development will make Greece a strong open access data transfer hub between Europe, Africa and Asia.

Strategic investment

It is a strategic joint investment through which the two sides participate in the development of the first undersea cable infrastructure between Greece and Egypt, via Crete, creating a new, reliable telecommunications bridge across three continents. In this context, Grid Telecom, which is the telecommunications “vehicle” of the Operator, acquires significant cable capacity to Egypt, Italy and France, ensuring access through the new cable to neighboring countries.

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Following the signing of a preliminary agreement in June 2022, the President and CEO of ADMIE, Mr. Manos Manousakis, the CEO of Telecom Egypt, Mr. Adel Hamed and the Director of Grid Telecom, Mr. Giorgos Psyrris, signed yesterday in Cairo, in the presence of of the Minister of Telecommunications and Information Technology of Egypt Dr. Amr Talaat, the contract for the construction and laying of the branch of the great cable of Africa. It was preceded by the signing of a strategic Memorandum of Understanding in February 2022 in Athens, which laid the groundwork for exploring different connectivity options between Greece and Egypt through existing and future fiber optic links.

Total length of more than 45,000 km

The African submarine cable system is expected to be completed in 2024 and will have a total length of more than 45,000 km.

The planned branch of the cable will be beached at Tympaki, on the southern side of Crete, connecting the island in the east with Port Said in Egypt and in the west with Genoa in Italy and Marseille in France.

The new telecommunications cable will efficiently serve the growing data traffic between Europe, Africa and the Middle East. It will also be the shortest, lowest latency data transfer route between Egypt and Greece extending north to the Balkans, Central and Western Europe and south to the Arabian Peninsula and other important destinations in Asia and Africa.