Bushehr, Iran

Bushehr, Iran: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Bushehr is a port city on the Persian Gulf coast of Iran, serving as the capital of Bushehr Province. Its position along the Gulf gives it direct access to the submarine cable corridor that connects Iran with its Gulf neighbors and extends outward toward South Asia. Two landings of the Gulf Bridge International Cable System/Middle East North Africa Cable System (GBICS/MENA) terminate at Bushehr, making it one of Iran's more active submarine cable landing points.

The GBICS/MENA system links Bushehr to a group of Gulf states — Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, and Oman — as well as to India, establishing both a regional intra-Gulf connectivity path and an intercontinental link toward South Asia. The presence of two recorded landings of this system at Bushehr reflects the cable's layered deployment across the region.

Cables Landing at Bushehr

The Gulf Bridge International Cable System/Middle East North Africa Cable System (GBICS/MENA) is a 5,270-kilometer submarine cable system that reached ready-for-service status in 2012. It connects Bushehr with landing points in Bahrain, India, Iraq, Kuwait, and Oman, forming a loop through the Persian Gulf and extending into the Arabian Sea toward the Indian subcontinent. A second recorded entry for this cable — in draft status — lists the same regional connectivity across Bahrain, India, Iraq, Kuwait, and Oman, with the addition of Qatar as a connected country. Together, these two entries represent the published and draft stages of the GBICS/MENA system's deployment profile at Bushehr.

Regional Context

Among Iran's seven submarine cable landing points, Bushehr ranks in the upper tier by cable count, hosting two cables alongside Soroosh Platform, which also hosts two. The leading landing points in Iran by cable count are Chabahar and Jask, each with three cables, while Bandar Abbas, Ganaveh, and Khark Island each host a single cable. Bushehr thus sits in the mid-to-upper range of Iran's cable infrastructure landscape.

Network Role

Bushehr functions as a dual-entry terminus for the GBICS/MENA system, providing Iran with connectivity into both the Persian Gulf sub-region and the broader Indian Ocean corridor. The cable's reach to India means that Bushehr is not limited to intra-Gulf connectivity but also participates in a longer-haul route bridging the Middle East and South Asia. The addition of Qatar in the draft record extends the range of directly connected Gulf states from this landing point.

In the regional submarine cable graph, Bushehr's role as a multi-entry landing point for a single intercontinental system distinguishes it from single-cable termini elsewhere in Iran, reinforcing its position as a meaningful node in the Gulf's undersea network architecture.