- Hostilities in the Middle East have delayed a Meta cabling project
- Connections in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf have been suspended
- It is not the first time that the conflict in the region has delayed the project
Meta’s undersea cable project designed to deliver “affordable high-speed internet” to Africa, Europe and Asia has been put on hold due to hostilities in the Middle East, a Bloomberg the report says, citing people familiar with the matter.
Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), contracted to lay cables on behalf of Meta’s 2Africa project, can no longer continue to operate safely in the region.
ASN sent a force majeure to the customers and stated that they were unable to continue the work safely in the Red Sea.
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The bottleneck of the Red Sea
This is not the first setback the project has faced. The Red Sea section has been delayed several times since the project started five years ago. Cable laying and cable repairs in the Red Sea were forced to stop on several 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) undersea cable has already been laid, but the Persian Gulf section, referred to as the ‘Pearls’, and a southern Red Sea segment have yet to be completed.
Over 95% of global internet traffic travels via submarine cables, and when completed, the 2Africa submarine cable project will be the largest system of its kind. The project will 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 is likely to face further delays as new contracts are acquired and new ground surveys carried out to safely lay cable in areas where unexploded ordnance may have fallen.
Areas historically underserved by high-speed Internet are likely to experience additional delays in their connection. 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 of cable-laying projects in the Red Sea have forced several projects to consider more expensive and construction-intensive overland routes that bypass the Red Sea, including routes across Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
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