LEV (cable system)

LEV is a submarine telecommunications cable system in the Mediterranean Sea linking Italy, Cyprus and Israel.

It has landing points in:
 * 1) Mazara del Vallo, Province of Trapani, Sicily, Italy
 * 2) Yeroskipou near Paphos, Cyprus
 * 3) Tel Aviv, Israel

Terrestrial section (Shown in blue) to:


 * 4. Catania, Sicily, Italy

It has a design transmission capacity of 20 Gbit/s, starting operation at 5 Gbit/s and a total cable length of 2,600 km. It started operation in March 1999.

The cable consists of a cable with 2 fiber pairs. Each fiber pair has the initial design capacity of 8 wavelengths of around 1550 nm wavelength, which capable to carrying traffic at a data rate of 2.5 Gbit/s each.

The landing points are arranged in a ring, where each 2 landing points have exactly one fiber pair connecting them.

The system today serves mainly as a backup system to the newer and higher-capacity MedNautilus cable system.