Jerusalem to Tanzania: 418ms Through Djibouti — The Tiny Nation Where 10 Submarine Cables Meet 8 Military Bases

The Traceroute

On March 31, 2026, our measurement server in Jerusalem ran a traceroute to Iringa, Tanzania — a city in the southern highlands, roughly 4,500 km south of Israel. The packet did not go south. It went west to Europe first, then turned back toward Africa through one of the most strategically significant places on Earth.

Jerusalem, Israel -> Frankfurt, Germany -> Gosselies, Belgium -> Djibouti -> Dar es Salaam, Tanzania -> Iringa, Tanzania

Six countries. 418 milliseconds.

The critical handoff happens at hop 9. In Gosselies, Belgium, Arelion hands the packet to PCCW Global (AS3491) — a Hong Kong-based carrier that operates one of the largest international backbones in the world. One hop later, the packet is in Djibouti. And from Djibouti, it reaches Dar es Salaam in a single hop.

But then the packet spends another 115 ms traveling from Dar es Salaam to Iringa — roughly 500 km inland. The international journey of 4,000+ km took 303 ms. The domestic journey of 500 km took an additional 115 ms.

Djibouti: 800,000 People, 10 Submarine Cables, 8 Military Bases

Djibouti is a country of contradictions. Smaller than New Hampshire, with a population of roughly 800,000, it sits at the entrance to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait — one of the most strategically important chokepoints on Earth, where the Red Sea meets the Gulf of Aden.

This geography has made Djibouti two things simultaneously: a military outpost and a submarine cable hub.

Military presence: Djibouti hosts military bases from the United States, China, France, Japan, Italy, Germany, Spain, and Saudi Arabia. It is the only country in the world where the US and China maintain military bases in the same nation.

Submarine cables: Ten cables land in Djibouti across three cable landing stations (YAC A, Haramous, and the newest Ras Dika, operational since 2023). Five serve Europe-Asia routes, five serve East and Southern Africa:

• AAE-1 (2017): 25,000 km, Hong Kong to France via Djibouti — 40+ Tbps
• SEA-ME-WE 5 (2016): Southeast Asia to Europe via Djibouti — 26.6 Tbps
• EIG (2011): Europe India Gateway via Djibouti — 36.6 Tbps
• EASSy (2010): Eastern Africa Submarine System — 11.8 Tbps
• SEACOM (2009): East Africa to Europe and India — 1.5 Tbps
• SEA-ME-WE 3 (1999): the veteran, now approaching end of life
• DARE1 (2021): connecting Djibouti to Somalia and Kenya — 36 Tbps
• Aden-Djibouti: regional connection to Yemen
• PEACE Cable (2022): Pakistan and East Africa connecting to Europe — 96 Tbps
• 2Africa (2024): Meta's massive 45,000 km cable, landing at Ras Dika

With even more cables planned (Africa-1, SMW6, IEX, Blue-Raman), Djibouti is the most connected territory in the world relative to its population. For every 80,000 Djiboutians, there is one submarine cable.

Why Djibouti? The Geography of Chokepoints

Thirty submarine cables pass through the Red Sea carrying traffic between Europe and Asia. Most do not stop in Djibouti — they run straight through. But the smart ones do stop, and here is why.

If a cable running from Europe to Asia through the Red Sea is cut north of Djibouti — a real risk, as the February 2024 Red Sea cable cuts demonstrated — the entire service goes down for months. But if that cable lands in Djibouti, traffic can be cross-connected to other cables, restoring service in hours rather than months.

Djibouti also serves as the sea gateway to landlocked Ethiopia — Africa's second most populous country with 120 million people. Terrestrial cables from Djibouti to Ethiopia carry much of the country's international traffic. A DARE1 branch connects Djibouti to Somalia and Kenya.

The country's prime minister has described the vision plainly: yesterday, Djibouti was a meeting point for trade in physical goods; tomorrow, it will be a meeting point for digital goods.

PCCW Global: The Carrier That Connects Continents

The carrier in our traceroute — PCCW Global (AS3491) — is the international arm of Hong Kong's PCCW Limited. It operates one of the world's largest private submarine cable networks, with capacity on over 60 cable systems spanning Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas.

PCCW Global is a member of the AAE-1 consortium and has presence in Djibouti through the AAE-1 and EIG cables. Our traceroute shows PCCW picking up the packet in Belgium (likely at an exchange point near Brussels), then carrying it through its European backbone to Djibouti via one of these cable systems, and handing it off to Tanzania Telecom for the final leg to Dar es Salaam.

The Belgium → Djibouti hop (141 ms → 192 ms, a 50 ms jump) is consistent with a path through the Mediterranean, Suez Canal, Red Sea, and into the Gulf of Aden. This is approximately 7,000 km of submarine cable.

Tanzania: Where International Speed Meets Local Reality

The traceroute tells two stories about Tanzania:

The international leg is fast. Dar es Salaam at 303 ms means the entire path — Jerusalem to Frankfurt to Belgium to Djibouti to Tanzania — covered over 10,000 km in about a third of a second. That is respectable.

The domestic leg is slow. From Dar es Salaam to Iringa — roughly 500 km inland — the packet took an additional 115 ms, reaching 418 ms. Ten hops of silence in the traceroute (hops 12-20 are missing) suggest a complex, possibly congested terrestrial network.

Tanzania has invested heavily in submarine cable landings. Five cables reach its coast: SEACOM, EASSy, TEAMS, DARE2, and 2Africa. Dar es Salaam is one of the best-connected cities in East Africa.

But connectivity from the coast to the interior remains a challenge across Africa. Terrestrial fiber buildout has not kept pace with submarine cable investment. The 500 km from Dar es Salaam to Iringa crosses the country's central highlands — terrain that makes fiber deployment expensive.

What This Route Reveals

The packet went west to go south. Jerusalem is roughly 4,500 km north of Iringa. But the packet traveled west to Frankfurt (1,600 km), south to Djibouti via Belgium and the Red Sea (~7,000 km), then south again to Dar es Salaam (~3,500 km), and finally inland to Iringa (~500 km). Total: approximately 12,600 km to cover a direct distance of 4,500 km — a ratio of 2.8:1.

Djibouti is the needle eye. Nearly all traffic from Europe and the Middle East to East Africa passes through Djibouti. This tiny country has become what Singapore is to Southeast Asia or Miami is to Latin America — a transit hub that punches far above its demographic weight.

The last 500 km matter. The international leg — Jerusalem to Dar es Salaam, crossing two continents and the Red Sea — took 303 ms. The domestic leg — Dar es Salaam to Iringa, a road trip of about 6 hours — added 115 ms. A reminder that submarine cables are only as fast as the terrestrial networks they connect to.

Djibouti, a country most people could not find on a map, carries more internet traffic per capita than almost anywhere on Earth. Eight military bases. Ten submarine cables. And a packet from Jerusalem that passed through on its way to a Tanzanian highlands city, routing through Belgium along the way.