Tunisia Establishes Direct Undersea Cable Link to Europe

Tunisia has launched a direct undersea cable link to Europe, facilitated by telecom giant Orange, which has opened a high-capacity digital corridor between Marseille, France, and Bizerte, Tunisia. This cable, known as the first active segment of the Medusa submarine cable system, spans 1,050 kilometers and is part of a larger network that will ultimately cover 8,760 kilometers across the Mediterranean.

The Medusa system, owned by African infrastructure company AFR-IX Telecom, is designed to connect 17 landing points across the Mediterranean, including countries such as France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, and Egypt. The project is co-financed by the European Union through the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) digital program, with a grant agreement signed in December 2022.

This development comes at a crucial time as African telecom operators and tech companies seek to enhance internet capacity and reduce outages, particularly following recent disruptions to submarine cables affecting services in Nigeria and other regions.