Sparkle shines in the Balkans and Middle-East with new fibre links
Created June 14, 2019
News and BusinessTelecom Italia’s Sparkle subsidiary has extended its fibre links in both the Balkans and the Middle-East. First, Sparkle and Telekom Slovenije of Slovenia have announced the launch of a new cross border optical fibre link directly connecting Ljubljana – the captial of Slovenia – with Milan, northern Italy.
Fully interconnected with Sparkle’s and Telekom Slovenije’s backbones, the new link provides a short and alternative route from the Balkans – with access options from Ljubljana, Sofia in Bulgaria and Istanbul in Turkey – to Milan and other major hubs in Western Europe.
The link caters for the needs of Balkan and Middle Eastern operators as well those of international OTTs, ISPs and content providers looking for diversified and reliable capacity solutions.
The new route is natively integrated with Sparkle’s global Tier-1 IP Transit backbone Seabone, among the top ten internet networks worldwide. It allows Sparkle to offer a complete range of IP and data services, including City2City connectivity, IP Transit, DDos attack mitigation and Virtual NAP solutions.
“We are collaborating with Telekom Slovenije on this unique terrestrial route from Turkey to the major Western European ecosystems across the Balkans,” said Mario Di Mauro, CEO of Sparkle. “The Balkan region is today an interesting greenfield market for international cables and we expect that the new route will attract Balkan and Middle Eastern providers looking for fast and reliable access to Europe.”
Simon Furlan, Telekom Slovenije wholesale director, said: “In the wholesale field cooperation with Sparkle has traditionally been very close and mutually satisfactory. However, with our latest project of connecting Sofia and Milan via Ljubljana, the synergy of cooperation has been put on a completely new level. We feel privileged to co-create a bridge between East and West for all of our existing and potential customers.”
And secondly, Sparkle has activated a new point of presence (PoP) in Aqaba, Jordan, in cooperation with Naitel, an integrated Jordan-based operator with data centres and a nationwide network.
Located by the Red Sea, Aqaba has the “potential to become a gravitational hub in the Middle Eastern region”, said Sparkle, leveraging Naitel’s open data centre and Sparkle’s international network.
“We want to deliver top performance connectivity and IP transit to the Jordanian market as well as to neighbouring countries,” Sparkle said.
Mario Di Mauro said of this development: “We are very proud of this new initiative that strengthens Sparkle’s positioning in the Middle East. The new Aqaba PoP marks a further step towards our company becoming a leading network provider beyond the Mediterranean basin, providing customers premium diversified connectivity solutions.”
For more information, visit: https://www.tisparkle.com
