- Hostilities in the Middle East have delayed a Meta cable laying project
- Connectivity in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf has been put on hold
- This isn't the first time conflict in the region has delayed the project
Meta’s undersea cable project designed to provide “affordable, high-speed internet” to Africa, Europe, and Asia has been put on hold due to hostilities in the Middle East, a Bloomberg report says, citing people familiar with the matter.
Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), who has been contracted to lay cables on behalf of Meta’s 2Africa project, can no longer continue operating safely in the region.
ASN sent a force majeure to customers, stating that it was unable to continue work safely in the Red Sea.
The Red Sea bottleneck
This isn’t the first setback the project has faced. The Red Sea section has been delayed multiple times since the project began five years ago. Cable laying and cable repairs in the Red Sea were forced to halt on multiple occasions due to military activity attributed to the Iran-backed Houthis - most recently in November 2025.
Much of the project’s 45,000-kilometer (28,000 mile) subsea cable has already been laid, however the Persian Gulf section, referred to as ‘Pearls’, and a southern Red Sea segment are yet to be completed.
Over 95% of global internet traffic travels via undersea cables, and when completed, the 2Africa undersea cabling project will be the biggest system of its kind. The project is set to bring internet connectivity to 3 billion people across Africa, Europe, and Asia.
If and when the US and Israeli conflict with Iran ends, the project will likely face further delays as new contracts are acquired, and new ground surveys conducted in order to safely lay cable in areas where unexploded ordnance may have fallen.
Areas that have been historically underserved by high-speed internet will likely see further delays in their connectivity. Areas specifically in the Red Sea may also suffer economic losses. The core 2Africa project is expected to contribute $36.9 billion to Africa’s GDP within the first two to three years of operation.
The frequent delays to cable laying projects in the Red Sea have forced multiple projects to consider more expensive and construction intensive overland routes that bypass the Red Sea, including routes across Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
