San Foca, Italy

San Foca, Italy: Submarine Cable Landing Point

San Foca is a coastal locality in Italy, situated on the Adriatic Sea in the Apulia region of the country's southeast. As a submarine cable landing point, it connects Italy directly to Albania via an undersea link crossing the Adriatic. One submarine cable currently lands at San Foca, establishing it as an entry point into the Italian national network from the eastern Adriatic shore.

The single cable landing here, the Trans Adriatic Express, creates a bilateral corridor between Italy and Albania. At 106 kilometres in length, this is a relatively short cross-sea connection reflecting the narrow width of the Adriatic at this latitude. The cable reached ready-for-service status in 2023, making San Foca one of Italy's more recently activated submarine cable landing points.

Cables Landing at San Foca

Trans Adriatic Express (TAE) is a 106-kilometre submarine cable that entered service in 2023, currently listed at draft status. It connects San Foca, Italy with Albania, spanning the Adriatic Sea between the two countries. No additional technical specifications, such as capacity or fiber pair count, are publicly detailed for this cable. The TAE represents a direct bilateral link between the Italian and Albanian coasts, providing a dedicated undersea path across one of Europe's most geographically compact international sea crossings.

Regional Context

Within Italy's submarine cable infrastructure — which spans 37 cables across 55 landing points — San Foca hosts a single cable, placing it in the lower tier of Italian landing points by cable count. Major Italian hubs such as Mazara del Vallo (9 cables), Genoa (7 cables), and Catania (5 cables) host considerably more connections, while even Bari, also located on the Adriatic coast, accommodates four cables. San Foca nonetheless represents one of the active points of entry into Italy's broader submarine cable network along the Adriatic seaboard.

Network Role

San Foca functions as a single-cable terminus rather than a multi-cable hub, anchoring one end of the Trans Adriatic Express and providing direct submarine connectivity between Italy and Albania. The Adriatic crossing enabled by the TAE is among the shorter international submarine cable routes landing in Italy, reflecting the geographic proximity of the Italian and Albanian coastlines at this point. The cable's 2023 service date also makes San Foca a relatively recent addition to Italy's network of active landing points.

In the broader regional submarine cable graph, San Foca's role is specific and bilateral: it extends Italian connectivity eastward across the Adriatic to Albania, supplementing the country's more heavily trafficked Mediterranean and intercontinental cable corridors that terminate at larger hubs elsewhere along the Italian coast.