MedNautilus
MedNautilus is a submarine telecommunications cable system linking countries bordering the Eastern/Central Mediterranean Sea. It is a successor of the LEV system linking Cyprus, Israel and Italy.
It has landing points in:
- Catania, Sicily, Italy
- Chania, Crete, Greece
- Koropi, Greece
- Istanbul, Turkey
- Tel Aviv, Israel
- Haifa, Israel
- Pentaskhinos, Cyprus
The system comprises 5,729 km of cable. Its total design transmission capacity is 3.84Tb/s on 6 fiber pairs. All the landing points except those in Turkey and Cyprus are served by a cable ring which ensures uninterrupted service in the event that any single segment in the ring fails or has its cable severed.
Telecom Italia, which owns the MedNautilus and LEV systems held a virtual monopoly on international cable-based communications to and from Israel. This is changed in 2012 however, with Bezeq International completing a 12.8Tbit/s submarine fiber optic cable to Italy and Tamares Telecom laying a 42Tbit/s submarine fiber optic cable to Cyprus and France.