112 km · 2 Landing Points · 2 Countries · Ready for Service: 2025
| Length | 112 km |
|---|---|
| Status | In Service |
| Ready for Service | 2025 |
| Landing Points | 2 |
| Countries | 2 |
| Location |
|---|
| Joss Bay, United Kingdom |
| Ostend, Belgium |
Monitored from 2026-04-10 through 2026-05-25 — live ICMP round-trip time measurements via RIPE Atlas probes. All values below are recomputed daily from raw probe data. ✓ No anomalies detected in the monitored period.
| Probe | Location | Samples | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|
| #55 | RIPE Atlas | 96 | 60.0 ms |
| #1014473 own probe | Minsk BY | 1 | 59.0 ms |
| #1014589 own probe | Almaty KZ | 1 | 155.2 ms |
| #1014597 own probe | Tbilisi GE | 1 | 79.0 ms |
| #1014969 own probe | Jerusalem IL | 1 | 146.9 ms |
| #1015313 own probe | Sevastopol UA | 1 | 95.2 ms |
| #1015523 own probe | Moscow RU | 1 | 67.9 ms |
Q&E North is a short intra-European submarine cable system spanning 112 kilometres across the southern North Sea. It connects Belgium and the United Kingdom, serving the cross-Channel corridor between these two countries. The cable is owned and operated by EXA Infrastructure, a provider of digital infrastructure across Europe and the transatlantic region.
In Belgium, the cable lands at Ostend, a well-established landing hub on the North Sea coast. In the United Kingdom, the cable comes ashore at Joss Bay, located on the Thanet coast in Kent.
Q&E North is wholly owned by EXA Infrastructure. EXA Infrastructure operates an extensive network of subsea and terrestrial fibre assets connecting Europe and North America, with a significant concentration of cable infrastructure along the UK and Belgian coastlines.
Q&E North reached ready-for-service status in 2025, making it one of the more recently commissioned systems in the Belgium–United Kingdom corridor.
The Belgium–United Kingdom corridor hosts a range of subsea systems, though most cables landing in the United Kingdom serve far longer intercontinental routes. Systems such as 2Africa, Europe India Gateway, Atlantic Crossing-1, Apollo, and Glo-1 all use UK landing points as part of routes extending thousands of kilometres toward Africa, Asia, or North America. EXA North and South, also owned by EXA Infrastructure, similarly spans over 12,000 kilometres. Q&E North, at 112 kilometres, is a distinctly short-haul system focused on direct cross-Channel connectivity rather than intercontinental reach.
Performance measurements over the last 60 days, drawn from 136 ping tests, show an average round-trip latency of 47.8 milliseconds, with a best recorded latency of 18.6 milliseconds. These figures reflect the cable's short geographic span between Ostend and Joss Bay.
Q&E North provides a direct subsea link between Belgium and the United Kingdom, connecting two of the most traffic-dense points on the European internet map. With a single owner operating both ends, the cable offers a straightforward path across the southern North Sea, complementing EXA Infrastructure's broader European and transatlantic network footprint. The Ostend and Joss Bay landing stations anchor the cable within a corridor that has long served as a primary conduit for data flows between continental Europe and the British Isles.
| Status | ✓ Normal |
|---|---|
| RTT | 37.60 ms / base 72.21 ms |
| Last checked | 2026-05-25 02:30 |
Monitored using RIPE Atlas probes. Open monitoring →
| Min | Avg | Max | # | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 days | 32.1 | 66.3 | 123.0 | 31 |
| 30 days | 32.0 | 63.7 | 123.0 | 54 |
| 60 days | 31.8 | 60.0 | 123.0 | 96 |
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