By Nick Booth
The new undersea cable will connect Greece and the broader Balkan Mediterranean region with its East and West destinations.
Will connect Greece to East and West Balkans
Hellenic infrastructure builder Grid Telecom, a division of power operator IPTO, has released details of a new subsea cable that will touch bases across the Eastern Mediterranean. The new sub-marine link will connect Greece and the broader Balkan Mediterranean region with its East and West destinations. In a partnership between Grid Telecom and subsea cable operators it will provide wholesale customers with open-access interconnection, data connectivity and international reach to Southeast Europe and beyond.
Backhaul
Grid Telecom will provide a diverse and reliable backhaul network to existing and new data centres on the island of Crete, the Greek mainland and neighbouring countries. It will be using its capacity to interconnect securely through its terrestrial networks and subsea cable systems MINOAS East-West and APOLLO East-West. Grid Telecom intends to offer all the necessary infrastructure for the secure landing and operation of subsea fibre-optic cable systems in Greece. This will include services for housing the terminal equipment, and other equipment for their extension and interconnection with backhaul terrestrial and subsea telecommunications networks.
Wholesaling
The partnership between Grid Telecom and prospective subsea cable operators will provide wholesale customers with open-access interconnection with leading edge data connectivity and international reach to Southeast Europe and beyond. Grid Telecom was formed in January 2019 as a 100 per cent subsidiary of the electricity company the Independent Power Transmission Operator (IPTO) of Greece. Grid Telecom’s fibre optic network (terrestrial and submarine) currently exceeds 4,000 km and will increase to more than 6,000 km in the next five years, connecting the islands with the core network.
Medusa
The agreement follows in the wake of a collaboration between a Barcelona-based infrastructure and telecom operator AFR-IX and Telecom Egypt for the landing of the largest Mediterranean submarine cable system, Medusa, in Egypt. The cable will have 16 landing points in several Mediterranean countries, such as Portugal, Morocco, Spain, Algeria, France, Tunisia, Italy, Greece, and Egypt. Medusa is an 8,760km long submarine cable system with 24 fibre pairs and a capacity of 20 Tbps per fibre pair that is planned to connect the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
Telecom Egypt
Telecom Egypt, as the partner-of-choice for major global submarine cable owners, is providing the international community with state-of-art infrastructure across Egypt and the globe to over 140 landing points in more than 60 countries. The company has invested extensively in its submarine cable infrastructure, which is the shortest and most reliable crossing path between Africa, Asia and Europe.
