The 45,000 kilometre 2Africa subsea cable systems interconnecting Europe, Asia and Africa is back in the news again, this time thanks to an announcement from Telecom Egypt and Cisco.

Egyptian service provider Telecom Egypt, which is also one of the largest subsea cable operators in the region, has announced the activation of a Mediterranean subsea link on the 2Africa subsea cable system.

The project has taken place in collaboration with networking and security technologies giant Cisco. Using Cisco’s Network Convergence System (NCS), the link creates a high-capacity connection between Port Said in Egypt and Marseille in France via Genoa in Italy.

As Telecom Egypt points out, the exponential growth of capacity-intensive applications such as cloud and AI services in the region is fuelling demand for expanded subsea network capacity, which in turn requires advanced coherent transmission systems of high performance.

This project, says Telecom Egypt, enables it to maximise the potential of its subsea assets on the 2Africa subsea cable, enhancing the efficiency of its cable operations and boosting international traffic capacity.

Along with Cisco’s cutting-edge NCS, the system offers data transmission powered by optical interconnect products specialist Acacia’s multi-haul coherent module, delivering high performance with less power per bit.

Telecom Egypt explains that the system allows network operators to enhance capacity across any cable, enabling precise adjustments to optical transmission signal bandwidth, modulation format and spectral efficiency.

Mohamed Nasr, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Telecom Egypt, says: “By enhancing the capacity of our well-established subsea infrastructure, we are meeting the surging demand for bandwidth-intensive services such as cloud computing and AI across the Mediterranean and beyond.” He adds: “Looking ahead, we aim to unlock even more of our potential by developing new projects and launching innovative products and services.”