TEAMS<br/>(The East African Marine System)

Overview

TEAMS — The East African Marine System — is a submarine cable spanning approximately 4,500 kilometres across the Indian Ocean, connecting Mombasa on Kenya's coast to Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates. The system was conceived to provide East Africa with a dedicated, high-capacity path to the Gulf and onward to global internet exchange points beyond.

Capacity and Design

The cable was designed with an initial throughput of 40 Gb/s, though its architecture accommodates expansion to 640 Gb/s — a sixteenfold increase that reflects the deliberate planning built into the system for long-term traffic growth. That headroom is significant for a region where demand for international bandwidth has historically outpaced available infrastructure.

Ownership

The ownership structure brings together the Government of Kenya, regional telecommunications operator Etisalat, and a group of private investors. The Kenyan government's direct stake is notable: it signals the degree to which reliable submarine connectivity was treated as a matter of national infrastructure rather than purely commercial interest. The builder of the system is not documented in available records.

Route and Regional Context

The Mombasa-to-Fujairah corridor is a well-established vector for East African international traffic, sitting at the intersection of Indian Ocean cable geography and the Gulf's role as a transit hub. For Kenya specifically, a direct link on this route reduces dependence on cables landing elsewhere on the continent and the terrestrial backhaul that dependency requires.

Kenya is the sole country designated as served by TEAMS, though the Fujairah landing places the system within reach of onward connectivity to Europe, South Asia, and beyond through the UAE's broader cable ecosystem. The system's place in the regional mix is that of a focused, nationally anchored link rather than a multi-country consortium cable.