Sparkle, the International Services arm of TIM Group and among the top ten global operators, has been awarded with MEF 3.0 Implementation Project 2018 and Silver Proof of Concept awards at a ceremony held in Los Angeles during the MEF18 global networking event that took place from October 29th to November 2nd.
Best MEF 3.0 Implementation project 2018 awarded the longstanding project on “Fulfilment and Activation of an Intercontinental MEF 3.0 Service Spanning Four Operators” developed by Sparkle together with Amartus, ECI Telecom, Equinix, Liquid Telecom, Spirent, and Tata Communications. This award-winning collaboration was created with the objective to implement LSO (Lifecycle Service Orchestration) architecture and LSO APIs across multiple domains, testing processes and automation and virtualization platforms, for automated MEF 3.0 services in an intercontinental network context.
The Silver PoC Award has been assigned to Sparkle as well as to service providers CBCcom, PCCW Global, Tata Communications and technology vendors Clear Blockchain Technologies and Cataworx for their Proof of Concept on “MEF 3.0 LSO Federated Inter-carrier Data-on-demand Services through Automated Discovery and Blockchain Settlement” that showcased how telcos can introduce next-generation services in record speed, thanks to innovations in blockchain technology, artificial intelligence and intent-based customer interfaces.
Proof of Concept Awards recognize the MEF18 PoC demonstrations that best showcase the ability to orchestrate dynamic services across automated, virtualized, and interconnected networks in accordance with the MEF 3.0 framework.
PoC Awards winners have been selected by a prominent panel of senior analysts from top global research and consultancy firms and have been announced during a ceremony that took place in Los Angeles, California, during the evening of 31 October.
"We are proud of these awards that confirm Sparkle's leading role in offering innovative services enabled by SDN, NFV, LSO and Blockchain technologies and architectures” - says Sparkle’s CEO Riccardo Delleani. “Sparkle continues to act as a pioneer in developing standards that facilitate interoperability and improve end-to-end automated services”.
Sparkle is MEF member and MEF certified company since 2011. Since then, the operator has been a pioneer and promoter in adopting MEF guidelines, becoming the first Service Provider in the EMEA region to achieve CE 1.0 & CE 2.0 certifications for Access services, and the first European Service Provider to receive MEF 100G Carrier Ethernet 2.0 certification for E-Line (EPL & EVPL) services, distinguishing itself as one the main MEF LSO architecture promoters since 2015 with the introduction of a Service Orchestrator for Carrier Ethernet Bandwidth-on-Demand service.
These wins follow the recognitions achieved by Sparkle in 2017 for Enterprise Application of the year for Media and 2016 for LSO Leadership Worldwide and Third Network Proof of Concept Innovation and the ones received in 2015 for Best Service Innovation-EMEA and Best Enterprise Application, confirming Sparkle’s commitment and excellence in deploying forward-looking technologies and contributing to the definition of industry standards.
About MEF and MEF 18
An industry association of 210+ member companies, MEF (formerly Metro Ethernet Forum) is enabling service providers to create a global ecosystem of networks that deliver agile, assured, and orchestrated services for the digital economy and hyper-connected world. These services provide an on-demand, cloud-centric experience with user and application-directed control over network resources and service capabilities. They are delivered over automated, virtualized, and interconnected networks powered by LSO, SDN, and NFV. MEF produces LSO frameworks, open LSO APIs, software-driven reference implementations, service specifications, and certification programs. MEF’s work will enable automated delivery of standardized wavelength, Carrier Ethernet, IP, SD-WAN, and Layer 4-7 services across multiple provider networks. For more information: mef.net.
MEF18 focuses on enabling agile, assured, and orchestrated communications services for the digital economy. Emerging “MEF 3.0” services provide an on-demand experience with user- and application-directed control over network resources and service capabilities. They are delivered across a global ecosystem of automated networks powered by LSO, SDN, and NFV. 1,000+ attendees from 275+ companies and 35+ countries. MEF18 uniquely empowers industry stakeholders with high-quality content, extraordinary peer-to-peer networking opportunities, and valuable insight into cutting-edge services and technologies. Attendees consistently have rated MEF’s global events among the best in the industry.
About Sparkle
Sparkle is TIM Group’s fully owned Global Operator and among the top ten international service providers worldwide, with a proprietary backbone of around 530,000 km of fiber spanning from Europe to Africa, the Americas and Asia. Leveraging its global IP, Data, Cloud, Data Center, Mobile Data and Voice Platforms, Sparkle offers a full range of ICT solutions to Internet Service Providers, OTTs, Media and Content Players, Application Service Providers, Fixed and Mobile operators as well as Multinational Enterprises. Its sales force is active worldwide and distributed over 36 countries.
Find out more about Sparkle at tisparkle.com
Rome / Los Angeles, 2 November 2018
