IslaLink’s Ionian cable system has landed in Greece and Italy and is set to launch later this year.

The 320km, 24-fiber pair Ionian system will connect Crotone on the east coast of Italy with Preveza on the west coast of Greece. The unrepeated cable will offer 360Tbps of capacity.

After several days of delays due to bad weather and rough seas, the cable was landed in Crotone earlier this month and landed in Preveza last week.

Ionian will be the first cable connecting mainland Greece with Italy since the Italy-Greece 1 system in 1995.

While Greece has a number of subsea cable systems, most land on islands such as Corfu or Crete, while the Minoas East & West and MedNautilus systems land on the south coast. Likewise, most of Italy’s subsea cables land on the island of Sicily or the likes of Genoa and Bari.

Neither Crotone nor Preveza has previously been landing points for fiber cables.

Fiera Capital/Fiera Infrastructure-owned IslaLink currently operates cable systems connecting the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, Morocco, and Algeria. It also offers colocation out of its Mallorca and Valencia cable landing stations.

The company previously said the cable system was due live by the end of 2022, but an update to the company’s site says it has been laid and will be live by April 2023. The cable is being installed by Orange Marine subsidiary Elettra via the CS Teliri.

I Squared Capital-owned Exa Infrastructure is the key landing and terrestrial services partner in Italy and anchor tenant for the system, while Grid Telecom is to offer terrestrial optic fiber network from the landing point in Preveza to Athens and Thessaloniki.