Israel To Build 254 km Fibre Optic Cable Link Between Europe And Asia

The government announced on Sunday that the country would build a submarine fiber-optic cable between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, creating a continuous link between Europe, the Gulf countries, and Asia. State-owned energy group EAPC will build the cable along the route of an oil pipeline it operates between the Mediterranean port of Ashkelon and Eilat on the northern Red Sea, the ministry said in a statement. The cable will carry data and telecommunications services.

The project is expected to be ready in a year. The new cable is a significant boost for internet service providers in Israel, which currently have to buy bandwidth from expensive international networks to connect with customers in Asia. According to the ministry, the new cable will cut costs for the companies and enable them to offer better services. The cable will have a capacity of 100 gigabits per second.

In addition to reducing transmission times, the cable will also improve security. It will allow the Israeli government to monitor traffic to and from Iran and other regions deemed a threat. The new cable will provide the telecommunications sector with a vital backup system to protect against attacks on existing networks. It will also help companies handle a possible breakdown in existing connections, which could be caused by terrorism or natural disasters.

Earlier this month, EAPC announced that it would invest about $80 million in the project, built by Finland’s Cinia and Russia’s MegaFon. The Far North Fiber project aims to traverse the Arctic and avoid existing choke points like the Suez Channel in Egypt, which is considered a critical point for internet infrastructure. However, the project is still in its early stages, and it remains to be seen whether it will be financially viable. It will also take time to raise money for the construction of the cable and will require significant investment in infrastructure in Arctic countries. Its main selling point is the low latency it will have, which will enable faster data transfers.

Several existing cable links exist between Europe and Asia, including the TEAMS submarine cable that runs from Mombasa in Kenya to Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates. The 5000km cable has two fiber pairs and a design capacity of 3.2Tbps. Another option is the FLAG European Africa-Asia Loop (FEAAL), which has a total length of 15,000km and two fiber pairs.

Other options include the ARSINOE submarine cable connecting Cyprus with France and Egypt and the TE North cable’s ALEXANDROS subsystem connecting Egypt with Europe. Another is the Kalaam Network Optical Transit (KNOT) provides route diversity in the Middle East and North Africa by linking with Cyta’s meshed transmission network through 12 countries and homing 16 Points of Presence in Europe and Asia.

The SEA-ME-WE 5 consortium comprises 19 leading telecom operators, including BSCCL, China Mobile Global, China Telecom Global, Du, India’s Reliance Jio Infocomm, and Pakistan’s Etisalat. Ciena’s WaveLogic Ai technology was used to upgrade the SEA-ME-WE 5 cable system between Singapore and Sri Lanka, which has three fiber pairs that reach Europe from India and four fiber pairs that cross Egypt to Asia.