Sparkle, the first international service provider in Italy and among the top global operators, and Mobily, a leading innovator in the Telecommunications, Media, and Technology (TMT) sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to create a new route to connect Europe to South-East Asia and thus meet the growing demand for secured and diversified connectivity between the two continents.
Under the MoU, signed during the Capacity Europe 2024 event in London, the parties agreed to leverage on Sparkle’s and Mobily’s terrestrial networks and the AAE1 cable in Jeddah to create a diversified and low latency route that will connect Italy to Saudi Arabia reaching Singapore.
With this new path, network providers, ISPs, OTTs, content and application providers as well as enterprises will enjoy reliable, low latency route in multiples of capacity levels from 10 GB to 100 GB and beyond. In addition, customers will benefit from the full expanded network of Mobily and of its partner to access their rich portfolio of services such as Layer-1, Layer-2 and IP portfolio, which provides virtual access to leading Internet Exchange Points (IXPs); and also benefit from Mobily services in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Sparkle services in Italy and Europe.
“This new diverse route will enhance the resiliency of global network connectivity between East/Middle East to Europe, thereby supporting the growth of Data Centers and content diversification for OTTs and Hyperscalers in the region. We are happy to have this cooperation between Mobily and Sparkle for such an important project”, said Thamer A. Alfadda, SVP Wholesale of Mobily.
“We are pleased to collaborate with Mobily in the realization of this intercontinental digital corridor, in which Saudi Arabia plays a primary and pivotal role, that will enable better communication between Europe and the Indo-Pacific while accelerating the development of digital services in all the countries crossed”, said Enrico Bagnasco, CEO of Sparkle.
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.
Find out more about Sparkle following its X and LinkedIn profiles or visiting the website tisparkle.com
About Mobily (Etihad Etisalat Company)
Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) is a Saudi company launched as the second Telecom service provider of KSA in May 2005. Mobily provides integrated services for three main sectors, individuals, businesses, and carriers. It has one of the largest wireless network coverages in Saudi Arabia and one of the widest FTTH networks in addition to diverse data centres spanned across multiple cities in KSA. Mobily lands 3 major Submarine cables in KSA as on date - AAE1, TGN (EA) & TGN (Gulf). Mobily also invested in the upcoming cables Africa1 & SMW6 to land in KSA which is expected to be operational by 2026. It is also working on various projects to enhance the diverse connectivity in the Middle East though multiple submarine & terrestrial cable initiatives in line with Saudi Arabia’s VISION 2030.
London, 15 October 2024
