Telecom Egypt’s 5Pbps Red Sea bypass puts chokepoint resilience back in the spotlight

This extends its Red Sea Subsea Festoon Cable System into a continuous route connecting Suez, Zafarana, Ras Ghareb, Sharm El Sheikh and Taba.

The system is designed for around 5 petabits per second of capacity, using the latest fibre-optic technology to cut signal loss and improve performance. It is expected to be ready for service in the fourth quarter of 2027.

PSL, which specialises in subsea installation and marine engineering, will carry out the project. Managing director Byron Skaftouros described it as “a resilient Red Sea bypass,” adding: “By developing a resilient Red Sea bypass, we reinforce Egypt’s position as a strategic gateway between continents, strengthen the security and continuity of international communications, and create new digital corridors of lasting global significance.”

A land bridge around the chokepoint

Cables landing on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast typically cross the country terrestrially to landing points on the Red Sea, avoiding the Suez Canal itself but still relying on the narrow Bab-el-Mandeb strait further south, an area that has seen repeated cable damage over the past two years. In September 2025, a ship likely severed four major subsea systems in the strait, disrupting connectivity across Africa, Asia and the Middle East. RETN CEO Tony O’Sullivan described the corridor at the time as “one of the most fragile bottlenecks in global connectivity.”

The new Sharm-Taba link does not remove that dependency, but it does add a second, geographically distinct route through Sinai, alongside Telecom Egypt’s existing terrestrial crossings. Telecom Egypt CEO Tamer El Mahdi framed the project as part of a wider push to diversify: “The Sharm-Taba cable is another significant milestone in the development of Telecom Egypt’s international infrastructure, particularly its subsea infrastructure in Sinai, strengthening route diversity, resilience, and capacity. It advances a new eastern digital corridor connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean through the Sinai Peninsula, reinforcing our strategy of leveraging Egypt’s unique geographic position at the crossroads of three continents.”

Egypt’s minister of communications and information technology, Raafat Hendy, echoed the resilience framing: “This agreement reflects Egypt’s continued efforts to strengthen its digital infrastructure and enhance the diversity and resilience of its international connectivity routes and reinforce Egypt’s pivotal role in global digital connectivity.”

The announcement follows two other subsea moves from Telecom Egypt in recent years: the completion of SEA-ME-WE-6 landings at Port Said and Ras Ghareb in July 2025, and an activated 2Africa link connecting Egypt to France via Italy in partnership with Cisco in January 2025. Taken together, the three point to a consistent strategy of stacking route options through Sinai rather than depending on any single corridor.

Setting up the conversation at Capacity Europe

Route resilience through geopolitical chokepoints is also on the agenda at Capacity Europe next month. On day one (13 October), the Global Critical Infrastructure Summit’s Fibre, Routes & the Fragility of Global Connectivity panel, featuring EXA Infrastructure’s Steve Roberts, will look at how the industry is building resilient fibre and subsea networks to support Europe’s next stage of connectivity and compute growth.

Day two (14 October) picks the theme back up on the Market Forces Stage. TeleGeography’s Stacey Parker opens with a data-led update on European subsea supply and demand, followed immediately by the Chokepoints & Shockwaves: Protecting the Cables Europe Can’t Lose panel, which will examine how hyperscalers and operators are responding to the fragility exposed by recent global crises. Speakers include Martin Prins of the Dutch Subsea Cable Coalition, Meta’s Ugne Kleinauskaite, Midgard Infra’s Luke Fox and Seacom CEO Alpheus Mangale.

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