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Locations |
France – Marseille Tunisia – Bizerte |
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Cable length |
1,050 km |
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Project start - end date (duration) |
1 March 2023 – 31 August 2025 (32 months) |
What will it provide?
The project will offer a direct, high-capacity and secure route addressing the expected exponential traffic increase between Tunisia and France, at competitive market prices.
How will it work?
Following the ‘open access cable’ model, the system owner, a neutral and independent cable operator, will provide wholesale access under fair, cost-effective and attractive conditions, in a non-discriminatory manner, allowing operators to benefit, through wholesale offers, from the latest transmissiontechnologies at competitive prices.
To enhance technological and commercial competition, the cable is designed as an open system: the line terminal equipment allowing traffic transmission between France and Tunisia is not purchased with the submarine vendor (turn-key offer). Instead, fibre pairs can be lit at different times with different vendors.
How will it be built?
The project will manage the works associated to the design and the construction of the submarine system, including the obtention of permits, route cable study and route surveys, the manufacture of the subsea equipment such as optical cable and active equipment powered from the landing stations, up to the final marine operations for the deployment of the cable
The ViaTunisia cable will carry 20 Tb per fibre pair and will rely on state-of-the-art technologies for submerged equipment and end-to-end (E2E) hardware and software solutions that are already field-proven.
How is it financed?
The ViaTunisia project has a total budget of €32 million of which €9.6 million funded under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Digital programme.
Who is involved?
The ViaTunisia project is being undertaken by Orange Wholesale, as coordinator.