Tunisia

Northern Africa · TUN

Tunisia lands five active submarine cables along its Mediterranean coastline, connecting North Africa to Europe and beyond. Its mix of older regional links and newer long-haul systems reflects a network built up across several generations of infrastructure investment.

Connectivity at a glance

Cable systems
6active
Landing points
0
Resilience score
54

Cable systems serving Tunisia

CableStatusReady for serviceLengthDesign capacity
PEACE Cableactive10 November 2022Up to 24 Tbit/s (per fiber pair)
ANNIBALactive
HANNIBALactive
Hawkactive
Italy-Tunisiaactive
KELTRA-2active

Landing points

Landing point records for Tunisia are being compiled.

Mediterranean Gateway

Tunisia sits at the northern tip of the African continent, its coastline facing the central Mediterranean at one of the sea's narrower crossings. That geography has made it a natural candidate for submarine cable landings since the earliest days of international connectivity, placing the country on routes linking Europe with North Africa and, through onward terrestrial paths, with sub-Saharan Africa.

Five active cables currently serve Tunisia: ANNIBAL, HANNIBAL, Hawk, KELTRA-2, and the PEACE Cable. The presence of five distinct systems is a reasonable foundation for network resilience — a fault on any single cable does not automatically strand the country's international traffic, provided landing stations and backhaul infrastructure are configured to carry traffic across the remaining routes.

The Cable Mix

The names ANNIBAL and HANNIBAL suggest a pair of systems with shared heritage, likely serving regional connectivity within the Mediterranean basin. Whether they terminate at the same landing station or different points along the Tunisian coast is not yet documented in this register, and that detail matters: two cables sharing a single landing station offer less true redundancy than two cables coming ashore at geographically separated points.

Hawk and KELTRA-2 round out the older tier of the network. Again, precise route and capacity information for these systems is not yet captured here, but their presence alongside the newer addition indicates Tunisia has accumulated connectivity across more than one infrastructure generation.

The PEACE Cable, which entered service in 2022, is the most significant recent addition. A long-haul system connecting Asia, the Middle East, East Africa, and Europe, PEACE brings Tunisia into a high-capacity international route that extends well beyond the Mediterranean region — diversifying the country's connectivity away from a purely regional footprint.

Geographic Considerations

Tunisia's relatively compact coastline means landing points are not spread across vast distances, which has implications for physical diversity. The country also shares land borders with Algeria and Libya, making terrestrial interconnection with neighbouring networks a practical complement to its submarine links.

The balance between regional cables and the long-haul PEACE system gives Tunisia a layered connectivity profile — short Mediterranean hops for traffic destined for southern Europe, and a deeper intercontinental route for traffic moving further afield. Landing point detail for all five cables remains to be confirmed in this register as documentation is compiled.