At a Glance
- Telecom Egypt completes 2Africa subsea network, boosting Africa’s digital capacity.
- Projected $36.9 billion GDP lift tied to expanded high-speed connectivity.
- The new cable links Africa to Europe, Middle East and South Asia at scale.
Telecom Egypt, a leading telecommunications company in Egypt, has completed the core buildout of the 2Africa subsea cable system, marking one of the most consequential upgrades to Africa’s digital infrastructure in a decade.
The company, working alongside a global consortium that includes Meta, Vodafone Group, Orange, China Mobile International, Bayobab, center3 and WIOCC, says the system will unlock a projected $36.9 billion boost to Africa’s GDP within its first few years of commercial operation.
The 45,000-kilometer network, now the world’s longest subsea cable, creates the first continuous high-capacity route linking East and West Africa.
It also connects the region to Europe, the Middle East and South Asia, a structure designed to support rising demand from cloud providers, financial platforms, media services, gaming companies and emerging AI developers.
A network designed for the next phase of digital growth
The system’s scale is matched by its reach: more than 33 landing points are expected to bring high-speed connectivity to nearly 3 billion people. Its West African segment, running from the U.K. to South Africa, offers 21 terabits per second per fiber pair across eight pairs.
In the Mediterranean—where cable distances are shorter—capacity exceeds 30 terabits per second per pair, bringing total potential throughput above 180 terabits across 16 pairs.
Egypt sits at the center of the cable’s architecture. The system lands at Ras Ghareb on the Red Sea and Port Said on the Mediterranean, with two terrestrial paths running along the Suez Canal to reduce the risk of outages.
A subsea link between Ras Ghareb, Zafarana and Suez adds redundancy along one of the world’s busiest data corridors.
The project spans six years of regulatory work across 50 jurisdictions, integrating newer technologies such as spatial division multiplexing and undersea optical switching to handle heavier traffic loads.
Engineers also placed sections of the cable deeper underground to protect it from fishing activity and maritime routes.
Egypt’s expanding role in global connectivity
Telecom Egypt says the completion underscores the country’s growing role as a transit point linking Africa, Europe and Asia.
The company plans to use the system to expand its wholesale business, add international capacity and improve service stability for carriers that route global traffic through Egyptian infrastructure.
“This milestone cements our role at the center of global data flows,” said Tamer El Mahdi, Telecom Egypt’s managing director and CEO. “We are proud to help open a new era of digital connectivity for Africa and beyond.”
Telecom Egypt remains one of the region’s largest integrated operators, providing fixed-line, mobile, broadband, enterprise and managed ICT services. The company also maintains operations in Singapore, France, Italy, Mauritius, Morocco and Jordan, with headquarters in Cairo and Giza.
