Sparkle to launch BlueMed submarine cable across Tyrrhenian Sea

April 15, 2019
Telecom Italia Sparkle, the international services business unit of Italian telecom incumbent Telecom Italia, says it will deploy a submarine cable between Palermo with Genoa. The BlueMed submarine network will be ready for service next year, the company expects.

Telecom Italia Sparkle, the international services business unit of Italian telecom incumbent Telecom Italia, says it will deploy a submarine cable between Palermo with Genoa. The BlueMed submarine network will be ready for service next year, the company expects.

BlueMed will link Sparkle’s Sicily Hub, an open data center in Palermo, with a new open cable landing stations in Genoa across the Tyrrhenian Sea. (The Tyrrhenian Sea extends between the west coast of Italy and the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica.) The Genoa landing site offers direct connections to Milan. Sparkle says BlueMed also will have multiple branches within the Tyrrhenian Sea as well as potential extensions southward from Sicily.

The 1000-km submarine network will have a capacity of up to 240 Tbps. Sparkle envisions the undersea cable meeting connectivity requirements between Middle East, Africa, Asia and the European mainland hubs with as much as a 50% reduction in latency between Sicily and Milan compared to present terrestrial alternatives. Sparkle expects BlueMed will enjoy additional onward links as more submarine cable systems land in Genoa. The Sicily Hub already serves 18 international cables, Sparkle says.

“The investment on the deployment of BlueMed and of the landing station in Genoa represents the first phase of a wider plan aimed at consolidating Sparkle’s leadership in the Mediterranean basin through the extension and enhancement of its regional backbone,” stated Mario Di Mauro, CEO of Sparkle.

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