22 November 2023 12:00
Sparkle, the first international service provider in Italy and among the top global operators, has signed an agreement with Telespazio, a joint venture between Leonardo, 67%, and Thales, 33%, and one of the world’s leading operators in satellite services, for fibre-optic access to Sparkle's Sicily Hub in Palermo.
The Scanzano Space Centre - operational since 1989 and located near the artificial lake of the same name about 47 kilometres away from Palermo - is specialized in providing hosting and housing services for large international satellite operators using low earth (LEO), medium earth (MEO) and geostationary (GEO) orbit constellations. These services require resilient and stable connections with a high level of performance.
Under the agreement, the Scanzano Space Centre is connected via its own fibre optic ring to Sparkle's Sicily Hub in Palermo - a state-of-the-art neutral data center and key Internet hub in the Mediterranean thanks to the presence of content platforms and cloud applications of the world's major players and the connection of all international cables landing in Sicily - with the consequent opportunity of offering its customers high-speed and reliable connections worldwide.
In addition, with the activation of Sparkle's new BlueMed submarine cable - connecting Italy with France, Greece and several countries bordering the Mediterranean all the way to Aqaba in Jordan - the Scanzano Space Centre will be able to count on connections at multiples of 100 or 400 Gbps to Europe, Asia and the Middle East. In Italy, where the cable is active since September, BlueMed increases the resilience of Sparkle’s network by offering a safe and diverse route between Sicily and Milan, with a latency reduced by 50% compared to the terrestrial backbones connecting the two capitals.
“With access to Sparkle's Sicily Hub, the Scanzano Space Centre consolidates and expands its capacity to connect to the global network, enabling Telespazio to offer its customers connectivity services with increasing speeds and high reliability. This is essential to promote the Scanzano centre as a Mediterranean satellite hub, enhancing its geographical position,” said Alessandra Farese, SVP Satellite Systems and Operations of Telespazio.
Enrico Bagnasco, CEO of Sparkle, said: “We are very pleased with this agreement with Telespazio, a company of international relevance with which we share the mission of offering global services” and added: “This agreement is a new confirmation of how, also thanks to BlueMed, the Sicily Hub in Palermo is strengthening its success as a strategic asset for the digitalisation of the country and a key hub for data traffic in the Mediterranean”.