Negative effects on the effort to strengthen Greece’s role as a data transit hub between Asia and Europe are being caused by geopolitical developments in the Middle East and the situation in the Red Sea.
According to sources in the domestic telecommunications market, delays in the deployment of new submarine cables are affecting the arrival of international data traffic through Greece, creating new conditions for the market.
The effects, however, vary depending on the degree of each company’s participation in these specific cable infrastructures. For providers that have not invested directly in the new cables, the issue mainly concerns the traffic they expect to reach Greece and serve through their networks.
For example, there are domestic providers that, without having invested directly in these specific new submarine cables, cooperate with international carriers that participate in them and have made investments to be present in the large data centers of Athens and Crete. For these companies, the key question is when, but also to what extent, the international traffic expected from Asia will ultimately reach Greece.
The battle for Asia–Europe traffic
Greater direct exposure to the delays is faced by international giants that have made significant investments in the new cable systems. Among them are Google and Meta from the United States, China Mobile and China Telecom from China, as well as Reliance and Tata from India.
These are groups with large organic traffic, which they seek to channel toward Europe, from where they draw a large part of their content. For this reason, they are also among those most affected by the delays in the new cable systems.