Tunisia and Algeria plan new subsea cable to Italy
The project would add capacity to existing Mediterranean links as both countries seek stronger digital resilience and better connectivity with Europe.
Tunisia and Algeria are studying a new joint submarine cable towards Italy as part of wider plans to strengthen digital connectivity between North Africa and Europe.
The project was agreed during the fourth session of the Algeria Tunisia Joint Technical Committee for cooperation in postal services and telecommunications, held in Tunis from 3 to 5 June.
The meeting was co chaired by Algeria’s Minister of Post and Telecommunications, Sid Ali Zerrouki, and Tunisia’s Minister of Communication Technologies, Sofiene Hemissi.
Algerian Radio, citing Algeria’s telecommunications ministry, said the two sides agreed to develop and upgrade the existing terrestrial telecoms link between the two countries and study the possibility of deploying a new shared submarine cable towards Italy.
The project would add capacity to an existing network of Mediterranean links, rather than creating a first connection to Europe.
Tunisia already has submarine connectivity to Italy and France, including existing links to Italy and the new ViaTunisia segment between Marseille and Bizerte, which reached ready for service status in June.
Tunisia is also part of the EU backed Medusa submarine cable system, which is designed to connect several countries across the Mediterranean, including Tunisia and Algeria.
Algeria already connects to Europe through the Alval Orval cable system to Spain and the Medex system to France.
The new joint cable would give both countries another route towards Europe at a time of rising demand for international bandwidth, cloud services and data traffic.
The Tunis meeting also covered preferential mobile roaming tariffs, satellite based internet of things solutions, coordination of mobile networks in border areas, postal cooperation, electronic data exchange and support for startups and technology hubs.
The session followed recommendations from the 23rd Algeria Tunisia Joint High Commission.
No cost, timeline or landing points for the proposed submarine cable were announced.