Cosmote has undertaken the design, study and construction of seven new submarine fiber optic infrastructures in the Aegean, as part of its participation in the European Sea-Spine project, to serve the telecommunications needs of eleven islands in the Aegean Sea.
The aim of the project is to meet the need for uninterrupted connectivity and increased network capacity in the Aegean, by installing a submarine backbone network with a total length of 563 kilometers to interconnect the islands: Amorgos, Astypalaia, Kos, Sifnos, Folegandros, Evia, Chios, Lesvos, Limnos, Thassos and Skyros.
In addition, 232 kilometers of land links will be constructed to interconnect the submarine optical cables with the network’s terrestrial interconnection centers. The new network infrastructure, which will be developed, will provide improved mobile and fixed broadband services, protection of telecommunications traffic through the creation of alternative connections and will reduce network latency in critical applications, serving the ever-increasing demands of the residents of these islands.
The project is co-financed by the European Commission through the Connecting Europe Facility-Digital (CEF-Digital) framework for the development of connectivity and backbone networks (Backbone Connectivity for Digital Global Gateways), which transport large volumes of data to remote areas of Europe. Its purpose is to contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the European Union strategy for the green and digital transformation of the economy and society. Cosmote, as the technical manager of the project, defines the architecture, prepares the design of the required solution, leads the preparation of the study and construction of the underwater and terrestrial optical infrastructures. Wings ICT Solutions also participates in Sea-Spine as the project manager and technical partner, as well as the Ministry of Digital Governance as a partner, supporting licensing, standardization, regulatory framework and promotion issues. The project has a total duration of 3 years and will be completed at the end of 2026.
“At Cosmote, a member of the Telekom Group, we are shaping the infrastructure that leads Greece into the future. With cutting-edge technologies and our participation in European projects such as Sea-Spine, for the development of high-quality connectivity throughout the country, we continue to intensively implement our investment plan, aiming to create a connected Greece, where everyone will be able to have equal access to new generation networks,” said Giorgos Tsonis, Chief Technology Officer of OTE Group.