The Medusa cable system is a 8760km submarine cable system connecting five Mediterranean EU countries (Cyprus, France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain) with four countries from the EU's Southern Neighbourhood (Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia).

The Medusa cable system consists of landing points in:

• Lisbon (Carcavelos) and Sines (Start Campus), Portugal
• Barcelona, Torreguadiaro, Zahara and Alacant, Spain;
• Marseille, France;
• Mazara del Vallo, Italy
• Yeroskipou, Cyprus
• Tétouan and Nador, Morocco;
• Bizerte, Tunisia
• Algiers and Collo, Algeria;
• Port Said, Egypt

The Medusa cable system consists of 24 fibre pairs, designed with 20Tbs per fibre pair for a total system capacity of 480Tbps, deployed with  protection and predictive maintenance of submarine cable infrastructures (PSI) and an intelligent monitoring system based on DAS (Distributed Acoustic Sensing) technology.

The Medusa cable system is funded by AFR-IX Telecom, Orange and the European Union though CEF (Connecting Europe Facilities) grants.  Orange provides landing infrastructures in France, Tunisia and Morocco, and will land Medusa cable at its new cable landing infrastructure in Marseille.

The construction contracts have been awarded to industry leaders Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) and Elettra Tlc, with contract into force (CIF) in early July 2023. 

The Medusa cable project is estimated to cost €342 million (US$374 million), with financial supports by multiple EU fund grants including but not limited to:

• a €40 million EU grant to AFX-IX telecom by the European Investment Bank (EIB) and a debt finance for the infrastructure with a contribution of up to €100 million in loans.
• a €7.79 million grant to AFX-IX telecom for the deployment of a pair of dark fibre between Lisbon, Zahara de los Atunes, Barcelona, Marseille and Mazara del Vallo, i.e., the Atlantic-Mediterranean Data Gateway (ATMED-DG) project, as part of the CEF (Connecting Europe Facility) Digital programme
• a €10 million grant to Orange by the EU Commission for the development of submarine cable between Marseille (France) and Bizerte (Tunisia), as part of the CEF (Connecting Europe Facility) Digital programme
• a €1.39 million grant to AFX-IX telecom by the EU Commission for studies on MEDUSA Canary Island Submarine Cable, as part of the CEF (Connecting Europe Facility) Digital programme