On Mar 26, 2009, Tunisie Telecom, the historical telecoms service provider in Tunisia, announced that they has signed a contract with Interoute to establish a direct submarine cable to link North Africa to the Interoute's pan-European fiber-optic network.

The cable will be connected between Kilibia in Tunisia and Interoute's landing station on Mazara del Vallo, Siciliy (around 170km). This new connection will give Tunisia ownership over the flow of its internet traffic and removes its reliance on consortium-owned sub sea cables such as SEASMEWE 4.

Tunisia will have access to new innovative services (Tv, Voip…) and competitive pricing model, and will be connected to Uk, Paris and 24 networked countries. Tunisian IP traffic has tripled in 2008, this new cable will have a capacity of 3.2 Terabyte per second, and will help with the rapid expansion of Internet traffic seen recently in Tunisia and which is expected to continue in the future.

No other details were disclosed.