The topic of submarine cables is back in the spotlight after the island of Lampedusa was left without internet or telephone connection, with a blackout that began on November 24th and ended only yesterday, December 2nd. The cause is attributable to the damage to a submarine telecommunications cable between Licata, Linosa and Lampedusa which, according to the manager FiberCop, was caused by “non-compliant behaviour, such as trawling or anchoring in prohibited areas”. At the same time, the increase in tensions between NATO and Russia has once again sparked fears of sabotage, an episode which already occurred in November 2024.
But have you ever wondered how many submarine cables there are in Italy and where they are located? According to TeleGeography estimates, there are around 25 submarine cables in our country, positioned in strategic areas, including Sicily, from which cables reach as far as Greece and Malta, but also Egypt, Israel and Libya.
What are submarine cables and where are they located in Italy
Contrary to what we might think, the Internet works mainly thanks to cables laid on the ocean floor. These are special cables that contain thousands of optical fibers and which allow the passage of information. In our country there are around 25 of them, installed to connect Italy with other states (Albania, France, Tunisia, Libya etc.), but also to unite the Peninsula with the islands, as visible in the map below.
In general, our country is mainly crossed by two types of submarine cables: firstly there are telecommunications cables, such as the one damaged in Lampedusa (highlighted in yellow in the image below), which extends for 240 km and is called “Lic-Lin-Lamp”, as it connects the islands of Lampedusa, Licata and Linosa.
But there are also submarine cables for the transport of electricity: among the most important is the one that connects Lazio to Sardinia, operational since March 2011 with a length of 435 km. As reported by Terna, this cable ensures a capacity of 1,000 megawatts and represents one of the deepest in the world, reaching 1,640 meters below sea level.
It must be said, however, that with the development of projects such as Starlink, the SpaceX satellite constellation designed to provide broadband Internet connection in the most remote areas of the world, the laying of submarine cables could decrease: at the moment, however, satellites cover less than 1% of data transmission globally.
In the specific case of Lampedusa, however, the Starlink alternative made it possible to guarantee some connections, even if to a minimal extent.
Undersea cables in the world: the global map
As confirmed by ISPRA (Higher Institute for Environmental Protection and Research), the global network of submarine telecommunications cables extends for over a million kilometers and carries 99% of intercontinental Internet traffic, as visible in the map below. The total number of these cables is unclear: according to estimates by TeleGeographywe would be talking about over 600. The laying of the first telegraph cables began around 1850, and then continued in the first half of the 1900s with the development of analog coaxial cables, up to the current fiber optic cables, laid starting in 1988.
At European level, in recent years the EU has been strengthening its connectivity infrastructure through 51 new projects, under the Connecting Europe Facility Digital (CEF Digital), for a total of 420 million euros invested. The aim of the program is to support the creation of secure cables, reducing dependencies on non-EU infrastructure and strengthening Europe’s position as a global connectivity hub.
But, in the end, who owns these undersea cables? It must be specified that submarine cables have an extremely high cost: fiber cables can cost up to 90,000 euros per km, while energy cables can easily reach €100,000/km for low voltage and €500,000/km for high voltage.
Precisely for this reason, the main investors in this field are telecommunications companies, together with large companies – mainly American – that base their business on the Internet, including Amazon, Meta or Google.
