Medusa Cable Reaches Marseille, Marking Major Milestone in Europe–Africa Connectivity

Medusa,  the submarine fiber optic cable system owned by AFR-IX Telecom, landed this morning at the cable landing station in Marseille. This marks Medusa’s first landing and represents a major milestone in the cable’s rollout across the Mediterranean.

The initial segment of Medusa will link Marseille with Bizerte (Tunisia) and Nador (Morocco), with landings expected between late October and December. This will be followed by the deployment of the remaining landings throughout 2026, ensuring the progressive expansion of the system across the region. This first connection between the two shores of the Mediterranean brings to life Medusa’s ambitious vision: deploying over 8,700 km of submarine cable to interconnect Southern Europe and North Africa, with 19 landings.

The system will feature segments with up to 24 fiber pairs, each offering a capacity of 20 Tbit/s. The first phase will be ready for service at the beginning of 2026.

“By bringing Medusa to Marseille, one of Europe’s leading digital hubs, we are laying the foundation for a project that will transform communications between Europe and Africa. Medusa will act as a driver of economic growth for the region and a catalyst for knowledge exchange across the Mediterranean.”

– Norman Albi, CEO, AFR-IX Telecom, Medusa

The choice of Marseille as the first landing point was strategic: its location has made it a major hub for data centers and a key node for submarine cable interconnections.

This important milestone has been co-financed by the European Union through the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) program, under the AFR-IX projects ATMED – DG and ATMED Nador – DG projects, which aim to strengthen connectivity between Europe and North Africa.

Medusa: A Corridor Between the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Red Sea.

Medusa is a neutral and independent submarine cable system that will connect 12 countries across North Africa and Southern Europe — Portugal, Morocco, Spain, France, Algeria, Tunisia, Italy, Malta, Libya, Greece, Cyprus, and Egypt — through a phased deployment across its various landing points.

Beyond connecting both shores of the Mediterranean, Medusa will also serve as a corridor linking the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean (with a landing in Portugal) and to the Red Sea (via Aqaba, Jordan).

The Medusa project represents a total investment of €342 million. While it is a private initiative, its strategic importance has attracted significant public funding. The European Union has allocated €38,3 million through the CEF program.

Additionally, the project has received €40 million from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to support GÉANT, an initiative aimed at ensuring connectivity between national research and education networks in the EU Southern Neighbourhood region (North Africa).