The Alternative Suez Canal: How Egypt Powers Mass Global Communication
Undoubtedly, the Suez Canal is one of the world’s most important maritime chokepoints.
Around 30 percent of total global container trade passes through the Canal, while each year, more than USD one trillion worth of goods pass through the narrow stretch of water connecting Asia and Europe.
For Egypt, the Canal provides a vital source of foreign currency. According to the Suez Canal Authority (SCA), the waterway generated USD 40 billion in revenue from 2019 to 2024.
For the 2025/2026 financial year, the SCA recently announced that revenues increased by 23 percent in relation to the previous year, despite significant regional disruption.
Yet the Suez Canal is not just a maritime chokepoint. It is also a vital chokepoint of international communications, linking multiple continents via a congested highway of undersea telecommunication cables.
It is these cables that provide Egypt with an invaluable opportunity to both enhance global communications, while expanding its economy. Buried beneath the world’s oceans, this network of undersea cables connects every continent except Antarctica, enabling individuals, businesses, and governments to communicate with each other.
These cables are vital. According to the UN’s International Telecommunication Union, as the foundation of the global internet, these cables account for 99 percent of global internet traffic, including countless financial transactions.
In Egypt alone, six such cables run the length of the Suez Canal, connecting Africa, Europe and Asia. One of these, IMEWE (India-Middle East-Western Europe), runs for 12,091 kilometres, bridging a host of different countries from Mumbai to Marseille.
Powering global communication is not new to the Suez Canal. In 1870, just one year after the passage’s inauguration, the British-run Submarine Telegraph Company laid the first telegraph cable under the waterway. This cable connected Suez with Mumbai, then a key hub in Britain’s colonial trading network.
Currently, Egypt’s undersea cables are controlled by Telecom Egypt (TE). Currently, TE manages the operation of 14 undersea telecommunication cables, overseeing the planning, building, and maintenance of existing and new projects in Egypt.