United Group is pleased to announce major new infrastructure project – the terrestrial cable between Athens and Thessaloniki, which will be part of a wider regional backbone aimed at enhancing United Group’s infrastructure footprint in South East Europe.

The new terrestrial cable, is scheduled to kick off in September 2024 and be completed by the end of 2025. It is implemented in Greece through United Group’s subsidiary, United Fiber, the 2nd largest FTTH provider in Greece. The project is part of UG’s broad international strategy, to further enhance its fixed infrastructure asset portfolio.

The Athens – Thessaloniki terrestrial cable will cover 548 km of network, passing through 8 key cities of Greece (Athens, Thessaloniki Volos, Lamia, Larissa, Livadeia, Katerini, Thebes).

From Thessaloniki, the new route will connect Sofia and Belgrade and, through crossing all Balkan region, will reach West Europe’s main hubs through Ljubljana.
To the East, it will be able to enforce the existing interconnections with Turkey and the Middle East, strengthening the existing interconnection with Bulgaria. To the West and South, the new route will be part of the current backbone linking Athens with existing submarine cable to Italy and Crete.

The wholesale activities in context with this project will be managed by the Group’s business unit UGI. The unit is dedicated to telecommunications wholesale activities across the the Group operations, offering state of the art telecommunications services including data, voice, mobile and roaming to all European HUBs partnering with major carriers and large tech companies.

Paolo Ficini, CEO UGI: “By creating this completely new route, United Group tangibly demonstrates its commitment to be the largest fiber network provider in Southeastern Europe, enhancing competitiveness, creating new investment opportunities and accelerating the digital transformation of all countries involved. The project meets the increasing demand coming from the significant investment in new data centers in the region, as well as in new submarine cables landing in Greece in the Southern border.“

Through this large-scale infrastructure project, United Group tangibly demonstrates its commitment to be the largest-scale Fiber Network provider in Southeastern Europe, a region of unique geolocation as the crossroads between the East and the West, enhancing the competitiveness of the whole area, creating new investment opportunities and accelerating the digital transformation of all countries involved.