Orange’s ViaTunisia subsea cable segment between Marseille, France, and Bizerte, Tunisia, has reached Ready for Service (RFS) status, marking its transition from construction to full operational availability on a direct new route between Europe and North Africa.
According to a statement from the telco on Wednesday, the subsea segment, co-financed by the European Union (EU) under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) programme, is ready to carry live traffic across the Mediterranean.
The journey to RFS began long before the cable reached the seabed. Designed as an open, point-to-point system with a 25-year lifespan, ViaTunisia progressed through several key phases: marine surveys, factory acceptance tests, cable loading, laying, shore landings and final splicing.
The initial grant agreement, signed in December 2022, provided funding to cover 30% of construction and management costs.
Marine operations were carried out by Orange Marine’s Sophie Germain and Elettra TLC’s Teliri cable ships. These operations were coordinated by Elettra TLC, with Alcatel Submarine Networks delivering the system design and equipment.
Orange stated that the investment demonstrates the EU’s commitment to reinforcing digital connectivity. It supports the rapid growth of data traffic driven by digital transformation and artificial intelligence, while unlocking new opportunities for digital services, investments and innovation.
Additionally, ViaTunisia extends directly into Orange’s global infrastructure in Marseille via a redundant urban fibre ring. This ring connects all data centres in the city, enabling seamless interconnection and distribution of international capacity across Europe.
“By combining the resilience, security and performance of a global backbone with Marseille’s role as a leading interconnection hub, ViaTunisia provides direct, high-capacity connectivity between North Africa and the wider digital world,” the firm noted.
“It also multiplies route options in this area, especially in natural disaster-prone zones, minimising outages caused by cable failures and improving overall network resilience.”
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