Sparkle, the first international service provider in Italy and among the top global operators, announced this morning the landing of the BlueMed submarine cable in Chania (Greece) during a press conference hosted at the Residence of the Ambassador of Italy in Athens and attended by Paolo Cuculi, Ambassador of Italy, Dimitris Papastergiou, Minister of Digital Governance, Alessandro Pansa, Chairman of Sparkle, Enrico Bagnasco, CEO of Sparkle, Daniele Mancuso, CEO of Sparkle Greece, Nikos Konstantinidis, Head of Open Hub at Sparkle and moderated by Stella Tsitsoula, Communication Consultant for ICT and CEO of RED.comm.
BlueMed is Sparkle's new cable connecting Italy with France, Greece and several countries bordering the Mediterranean. It is part of the Blue & Raman Submarine Cable Systems built in partnership with Google and other operators that stretch further in the Middle East up to Mumbai, India.
With four fibre pairs and an initial design capacity of more than 25 Terabits per second (Tbps) per pair, BlueMed offers high-speed Internet connections and high-performance solutions to Internet Service Providers (ISPs), carriers, telecom operators, content providers, enterprises, and institutions to support the growing needs and digital evolution of the connected countries.
Laying began in 2023 with the main Tyrrhenian trunk from Genoa to Palermo and with branches to Marseille and Bastia (France), Golfo Aranci (Sardinia), Pomezia (Rome). From Palermo, the cable crossed the Strait of Messina to reach the Greek island of Crete from where it will continue with further branches in the Mediterranean up to Aqaba in Jordan. The Tyrrhenian and the Middle Eastern terrestrial sections are in full operation, while further Mediterranean landings and the full operation from Genoa to Aqaba are expected by this year.
In Crete, BlueMed reaches Sparkle's data centre in Chania, a cable landing station interconnected with the island's terrestrial networks and Sparkle's MedNautilus network (with connections to mainland Greece, Turkey, and Italy). Sparkle is further developing the hub to accommodate other submarine cable projects including GreenMed that will cross the Adriatic Sea connecting Italy to Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Greece and Turkey, thus creating a diversified, low latency route between Central Europe, the Balkans and the Central and Eastern Mediterranean countries.
Paolo Cuculi, Ambassador of Italy, commented: “The arrival in Greece of the BlueMed submarine cable represents a fundamental step in the process of digital connectivity between Italy and its partners in the Mediterranean Basin, with the island of Crete as an important strategic hub. Sparkle confirms itself as an absolute Italian excellence and a leading global player in fostering the digital transition, fundamental for the sustainable development of our two countries.”
The Minister of Digital Governance, Dimitris Papastergiou, declared: "This is an important milestone that marks a new era in connectivity and highlights the central role of Greece in the Mediterranean Sea, placing Greece at the heart of a digital route that bridges Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. It is a critical infrastructure, which will significantly enhance the capacity and resilience of digital data traffic, while underlining our commitment to the European Union's strategic autonomy objective. Advanced infrastructures such as BlueMed will also support other important developments like "Daedalos" Hyper Performance Computer that promotes Greece to the forefront of computing innovation and research, supporting technologies such as AI and big data. The landing of the BlueMed cable reflects all that we can achieve when we commit together to an important goal."
“With the landing of BlueMed in Crete, Greece is enabling a new digital route for Internet traffic between Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia,” said Enrico Bagnasco, CEO of Sparkle. “We have been operating in Greece for more than 20 years and here we have the skills and infrastructures needed to develop it as a new Internet hub of the Mediterranean, a role destined to grow further in the future thanks to the landing of new submarine cables.”
“With BlueMed, we strengthen our longstanding presence in Greece and reaffirm our commitment to fostering the development of a digital ecosystem increasingly connected to the world,” added Daniele Mancuso, Chief Marketing & Product Management at Sparkle and CEO of Sparkle Greece. “With four data centers in the country and a wide portfolio of digital services including IoT and networking solutions, we ensure Greek enterprises and institutions efficient communications both within their sites and with their external ecosystems.”
About Sparkle
Sparkle is TIM Group’s Global Operator, first international service provider in Italy and among the top worldwide, offering a full range of infrastructure and global connectivity services – capacity, IP, SD-WAN, colocation, IoT connectivity, roaming and voice - to national and international Carriers, OTTs, ISPs, Media/Content Providers, and multinational enterprises. A major player in the submarine cable industry, Sparkle owns and manages a network of more than 600,000 km of fiber spanning from Europe to Africa and the Middle East, the Americas and Asia. Its sales force is active worldwide and distributed over 33 countries.
In Greece, the company is active since 2001, managing and operating four open data centers - three in Athens, in the areas of Koropi and Metamorfosis, and one in Chania - as well as a proprietary fiber optic network connecting all its facilities and fully integrated with Sparkle’s Tier-1 global backbone.
Rome/Athens, 22 May 2024
