The New Subsea Cables RFS 2025 Series: Andromeda

The Andromeda cable will link Greece, Cyprus, and Israel with cable landing stations at Korakia, Greece, and Tirat Carmel, Israel. The plan is to extend the subsea cable across Israel to the important Aqaba, Jordan, and Haqi, Saudi Arabia data centers. Apparently via the existing oil pipeline that transports oil from the Red Sea to Israel. This Israel cooperation with Arab countries reflects the ongoing rapprochement between the former enemies. Andromeda, if built, will provide much needed physical diversity and cost savings by bypassing Egypt, which most Europe-Asia cables use despite Telecom Egypt's very high transit fees. 

Tamares Telecom owns the Tamares North cable connecting Israel with Cyprus and I believe that Andromeda will take this existing subsea infrastructure and extend it to Greece. However, it is worth noting that neither Tamares Telecom nor its Greek partner Grid Telecom (the wholesale subsidiary of a Greek power transmission company) have announced a subsea construction contract in force and my understanding is that the telecom conduit installation in the EAPC right of way is not finished. Telegeography puts this cable in its 2025 RFS category, but I am skeptical that the project will happen, let alone be completed next year. There is little demand for an Egypt bypass route that does not connect to Italy, France or Spain. Subsea connectivity costs are proportional to the number of networks involved. If it takes two subsea cables to connect Marseille to Singapore, the cost will be close to twice that of a single cable providing end-to-end service. This is the way that wholesale telecom pricing has always worked. 

If the idea is to take traffic destined for Eastern Europe and route it via Greece, then the owners are likely to be disappointed. Not only is Eastern Europe poorer than Western Europe, it is not catching up. Signs of economic convergence are few and far between and growth rates while higher than Western Europe are way below most examples of successful economic development (think South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore). I have seen only two requests involving Greece in the last 18 months and given how hard wholesale buyers shop, this suggests that Greece is not an emerging telecom hub. Not only is demand for direct links between the Middle East and Eastern Europe extremely weak, but Greece is a difficult place to land as the Aegean Sea lies largely on the continental shelf, is full of undersea archeological sites, subject to territorial disputes, and a major shipping corridor. I give this project only a 20% chance of happening. No chance of RFS in 2025. 


The intent behind Andromeda is to link Israel, Cyprus, and Greece and allow telecom traffic to bypass Egypt.


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