Taba-Aqaba

Overview

Taba-Aqaba is a short bilateral submarine cable connecting Egypt and Jordan across the northern tip of the Red Sea. Spanning just 13 kilometres, it is one of the shortest submarine cable systems in the region, linking the Egyptian coastal town of Taba with the Jordanian port city of Aqaba. The cable serves a narrow but direct cross-border corridor between two neighbouring countries sharing a common stretch of coastline on the Gulf of Aqaba.

Route and Landings

In Egypt, the cable lands at Taba, a town situated at the northern end of the Gulf of Aqaba on the Sinai Peninsula.

In Jordan, the cable lands at Aqaba, the country's only coastal city and its sole submarine cable landing point.

Ownership and Operators

Taba-Aqaba is owned by the National Electric Power Company of Jordan. As a single-owner system, it operates outside the multi-party consortium arrangements common among larger international cables.

Status and Timeline

The cable entered service in 1998, making it 28 years operational. It was notably among the earliest submarine cables to reach Jordan, which recorded its first cable landing that same year. The cable remains in service today.

Regional Context

Egypt is one of the most connected submarine cable hubs in the region, with 16 cables landing across 9 landing points. The Gulf of Aqaba corridor, however, sees considerably less activity — Jordan has three submarine cables in total, all landing at the single point of Aqaba. At 13 kilometres, Taba-Aqaba is considerably shorter than the other cables touching Egypt and Jordan, which include long-haul intercontinental systems such as 2Africa, AAE-1, PEACE Cable, SeaMeWe-6, EIG, and IMEWE. Those systems traverse tens of thousands of kilometres and serve broad intercontinental routes, whereas Taba-Aqaba addresses only the narrow bilateral crossing between the two countries.

Over the last 60 days, 74 ping tests through the cable recorded an average round-trip latency of 117.1 milliseconds, with a best recorded measurement of 114.5 milliseconds.

Strategic Role

Despite its short physical length, Taba-Aqaba provides a dedicated submarine link between Egypt and Jordan across the Gulf of Aqaba. For Jordan, which has only one submarine cable landing point at Aqaba, each cable terminating there represents a discrete pathway for international connectivity. Taba-Aqaba's direct cross-border span offers a connection that reflects the geographic proximity of the two landing points, complementing the longer-haul systems that also reach the Jordanian coast.