United Fiber, subsidiary of United Group, to kick off new terrestrial cable between Athens and Thessaloniki, Greece, with UGI managing the commercialization

- The new terrestrial cable between Athens and Thessaloniki, Greece, to kick off in September 2024 and to be completed by the end of 2025.

- The new route from Thessaloniki will connect Greece further to UG points of presence in Sofia and Belgrade and, through crossing all Balkan region, will reach West Europe’s main hubs.

- UG’s infrastructure footprint to be further solidified by the project, serving customers and large business clients in the region.

- Wholesale activities for this project will be managed by UGI Wholesale, the new business unit of United Group dedicated to telecommunications wholesale activities across the United Group operations.

United Group, the leading telecommunications and entertainment provider in Southeastern Europe, is pleased to announce a major, new infrastructure project, a terrestrial cable between Athens and Thessaloniki, which will be part of a wider regional backbone aiming to enhance United Group’s infrastructure footprint in the Southeastern 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.