MedNautilus
# MedNautilus

MedNautilus is a submarine telecommunications cable system linking countries bordering the Eastern/Central Mediterranean Sea. It is a successor of the LEV system linking Cyprus, Israel and Italy.

It has landing points in:

* Catania, Sicily, Italy
* Chania, Crete, Greece
* Koropi (Athens), Greece
* Istanbul, Turkey
* Tel Aviv, Israel
* Haifa, Israel
* Pentaskhinos, Cyprus

The system comprises 5,729 km of cable. Its total design transmission capacity is 3.84Tb/s on 6 fiber pairs. All the landing points except those in Turkey and Cyprus are served by a cable ring which ensures uninterrupted service in case any single segment in the ring fails or has its cable severed.

Telecom Italia, which owns the MedNautilus and LEV systems held a virtual monopoly on international cable-based communications to and from Israel. This is changed in 2012 however, with Bezeq International completing a 12.8Tbit/s submarine fiber optic cable to Italy and Tamares Telecom laying a 42Tbit/s submarine fiber optic cable to Cyprus and France.

