Seman, Albania

Seman, Albania: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Seman is a coastal landing point in Albania, situated along the Adriatic Sea in the southwestern part of the country. Two submarine cables make landfall here, making Seman one of Albania's two active submarine cable landing points alongside Durres. The cables landing at Seman connect Albania to Italy across the Adriatic and extend further to Egypt in the Mediterranean, enabling both short-range cross-Adriatic connectivity and a longer intercontinental corridor reaching North Africa.

The two cables at Seman serve distinct roles in terms of reach. The Trans Adriatic Express is a compact, regional cable linking Albania directly to Italy, while EAGLE extends that connectivity southward to Egypt, forming a broader Mediterranean arc. Together, these cables position Seman as a landing point engaged in both regional and intercontinental submarine cable infrastructure.

Cables Landing at Seman

EAGLE is a submarine cable spanning approximately 2,000 km, with a ready-for-service date of 2028 (draft status). In addition to Seman in Albania, the cable connects to Italy and Egypt, tracing a route across the central and eastern Mediterranean. This makes EAGLE the longer of the two cables at Seman and the one that extends connectivity beyond the Adriatic region toward North Africa.

Trans Adriatic Express (TAE) is a shorter submarine cable measuring 106 km, with a ready-for-service date of 2023 (draft status). It links Seman, Albania directly to Italy across the Adriatic Sea. At 106 km, TAE is a focused cross-Adriatic connection, providing a relatively short but direct link between the two countries.

Regional Context

Albania's submarine cable infrastructure is distributed across two landing points: Seman and Durres. Both locations host two submarine cables each, accounting for a combined total of four cables landing in Albania. Seman and Durres together form the entirety of Albania's submarine cable geography, with the country's first cable having entered service in 1996 and an average cable length across all Albanian landings of 697 km.

Network Role

Seman functions as a two-cable landing point, hosting both a short cross-Adriatic link and a longer Mediterranean cable reaching Egypt via Italy. This combination means that Seman supports connectivity across two distinct distance scales: the narrow Adriatic corridor to Italy through TAE, and a multi-country Mediterranean route through EAGLE. The landing point is not a single-terminus facility but rather a junction where regional and intercontinental cable paths converge on the Albanian coast.

Within the broader Mediterranean submarine cable graph, Seman's pairing of a short regional cable with a longer intercontinental one gives Albania's southern landing point a distinct profile from Durres, and ensures that the country's connectivity is not concentrated at a single coastal site.