Egypt
Egypt sits at one of the world's most strategically significant chokepoints for submarine cables, with multiple active systems threading through or landing on its territory to connect Europe, Asia and Africa.
Connectivity at a glance
- Cable systems
- 6active
- 1 planned
- Landing points
- 0
- Resilience score
- 56
Cable systems serving Egypt
| Cable | Status | Ready for service | Length | Design capacity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PEACE Cable | active | 10 November 2022 | — | Up to 24 Tbit/s (per fiber pair) |
| Asia-Africa-Europe 1 (AAE-1) | active | 23 June 2017 | — | 100 Tbit/s (20 Tbit/s per fibre pair) |
| MENA Submarine Cable System | active | November 2014 | — | — |
| I-ME-WE | active | 2010 }} | 12,091 km | 5.6 Tbit/s |
| Hawk | active | — | — | — |
| TE North | active | — | — | — |
| Africa-1 | planned | — | — | 96 Tbit/s (12 Tbit/s per fiber pair)}} |
Landing points
Landing point records for Egypt are being compiled.
A Pivotal Position on the Global Network
Few countries carry the geographic weight that Egypt does in the architecture of the global submarine cable network. Straddling the Suez Canal corridor, Egypt functions as an unavoidable transit zone for cables moving between Europe and Asia, while its Mediterranean and Red Sea coastlines provide natural landing points for systems serving multiple continents simultaneously.
Seven cable systems are associated with Egypt in total — six active and one planned — a count that reflects both the country's strategic value and the commercial appetite for routing capacity through it.
The Active Cable Mix
The longest documented system serving Egypt is I-ME-WE, which entered service in 2010 and runs to 12,091 kilometres, linking India, the Middle East and Western Europe across a route that necessarily transits Egyptian geography. Asia-Africa-Europe 1 (AAE-1), active since 2017, extends a similar corridor and represents a later generation of capacity on broadly comparable routing logic.
The MENA Submarine Cable System, active since 2014, addresses regional connectivity within the Middle East and North Africa rather than long-haul intercontinental traffic, suggesting Egypt is served by both trunk routes and more localised infrastructure. PEACE Cable, which entered service in 2022, adds a newer system to the mix, broadening the diversity of ownership and technology generations present on Egypt's network.
Hawk and TE North are also active, though their ready-for-service dates are not yet recorded in this register. Africa-1, currently in the planned stage, would add further capacity once commissioned.
Resilience and Route Diversity
The presence of six active cables is a meaningful buffer against single-system dependency. Where a country relies on one or two cables, any fault — whether from a ship's anchor, a seismic event or a technical failure — can cause measurable disruption to national connectivity. Egypt's mix of systems across different eras, owners and route geometries distributes that risk more broadly, though the concentration of cables through a shared physical corridor near the Suez Canal means that geographically co-located risks remain a structural consideration.
The planned Africa-1 system, once it matures, would extend Egypt's role further into sub-Saharan African connectivity.
Landing Point Documentation
No individual landing stations are yet documented in this register for Egypt. Work to compile confirmed landing point locations, associated terminal facilities and cable station operators is ongoing. Verified details will be added as they are confirmed.