2Africa cable lands at Port Said, Egypt

“2Africa ship ends its amazing journey in Egypt with its successful landing on the Mediterranean coast in Port Said,” Ola Khaled, international business development senior manager at Telecom Egypt, said on LinkedIn this week.

The 2Africa cable previously landed at Telecom Egypt’s cable landing station (CLS) in Ras Ghareb on the eastern coast of Egypt on the Red Sea, in November 2022.

Though the Suez Canal is a major thoroughfare for subsea cables crossing between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, this is only the second cable landing at Port Said – located at the northern mouth of the canal – following Telecom Egypt’s Red2Med cable that launched last year.

However, the Africa-1, FEA, Medusa, India-Europe-Xpress (IEX), and SeaMeWe6 cables are all set to land at Port Said over the next two years.

2Africa close to completing East African trunk

Meta, along with Telecom Egypt, China Mobile International, MTN GlobalConnect, Orange, STC, Vodafone, and the West Indian Ocean Cable Company (WIOCC) announced the 2Africa cable back in 2020 that would circle the African continent.

At 45,000km, it is the world's largest subsea cable and will connect 33 countries with 46 landing points across Africa, Europe, and Asia when it is complete. Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) is responsible for manufacturing and deploying the 16-fiber pair, 180Tbps cable, which is due for completion in 2024.

In Europe, 2Africa's cable has previously landed in Barcelona at AFR-IX Telecom’s new CLS as well as an Equinix facility in Genoa, Italy, and a Digital Realty facility in Marseille, France.