IMEWE

Overview

IMEWE (India-Middle East-Western Europe) is an intercontinental submarine cable system spanning 12,091 kilometres. It connects eight countries across South Asia, the Middle East, and Western Europe: India, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt, Italy, and France. The cable serves the corridor linking the Indian subcontinent to Europe via the Arabian Sea, Red Sea, and Mediterranean Sea.

Route and Landings

In India, the cable lands at Mumbai. In Pakistan, it lands at Karachi. The United Arab Emirates is served by a landing at Fujairah, and Saudi Arabia by a landing at Jeddah. Lebanon has a landing point at Tripoli. Egypt is served by two landing points: Alexandria and Suez. In Italy, the cable comes ashore at Catania, and in France at Marseille.

Ownership and Operators

IMEWE is jointly owned by a consortium of eight telecommunications operators: Bharti Airtel, Ogero, Orange, Pakistan Telecommunications Company Ltd., Sparkle, Tata Communications, Telecom Egypt, and center3. Bharti Airtel and Tata Communications are among India's largest international carriers. Orange is a major French telecommunications group with extensive international infrastructure. Sparkle, a subsidiary of Telecom Italia, operates one of the largest international IP backbones in the Mediterranean region.

Technical Profile

No capacity, fiber pair count, or supplier information is available for IMEWE at this time.

Status and Timeline

IMEWE became ready for service in 2010 and is currently in service.

Regional Context

The India–Middle East–Western Europe corridor is one of the most active routes for submarine cable development. IMEWE, at 12,091 km, sits alongside several larger systems serving overlapping geographies, including Asia Africa Europe-1 (AAE-1) at 25,000 km (RFS 2017), PEACE Cable at 25,000 km (RFS 2022), SeaMeWe-6 at 21,700 km (anticipated RFS 2026), and 2Africa at 45,000 km (RFS 2024). IMEWE was among the earlier systems to connect this full corridor in a single cable, predating most of these peers by several years.

Measured performance across 74 ping tests over the last 60 days shows an average round-trip latency of 141.9 ms, with a best recorded result of 107.7 ms.

Strategic Role

With nine landing points across eight countries, IMEWE provides direct submarine connectivity between the Indian subcontinent, the Gulf region, the Levant, and Mediterranean Europe. The dual Egyptian landings at Alexandria and Suez reflect the geographic necessity of traversing both ends of the Suez isthmus, a common characteristic of cables transiting this corridor. The cable's ownership structure, spanning operators from each landing country, distributes capacity access across the nations it serves.