03 April 2024

Tunisia has identified a need for 6-7 international fibre optic submarine cables reported Kamel Saadaoui, chief of staff of the Ministry of Technologies and Communication.

The initiative should make it possible to strengthen Tunisia’s national telecoms infrastructure to accelerate the development of telecommunications networks across the country and facilitate the commercial deployment of 5G.

Tunisia is served by several international submarine fibre optic cables including SEA-ME-WE 4, Keltra, Hannibal, Didon and most recently, Ifriqiya. Orange announced in April 2023, an underwater cable linking Tunisia to France which should be put into service at the end of 2025.

Strengthening the national telecoms infrastructure should help improve the quality and coverage of telecoms services to meet the growing demand of populations and businesses for high-speed connectivity. According to the National Telecommunications Authority (INT), the average international bandwidth capacity consumed increased from 782Gbps in the third quarter of 2021 to 980Gbps in the third quarter of 2023. Over the same period the equipped capacity increased from 1,210Gbps to 1,710Gbps.