Rome wants to be a global connectivity hub between Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia but there’s plenty of competition
TIM Group’s global wholesale network operator Sparkle has activated a new point of presence (PoP) at the Hyper Cloud Data Centre of Aruba, the largest data centre campus in Rome, to be inaugurated soon.
The operator believes its BlueMed cable – connecting Italy with France, Greece and several countries bordering the Mediterranean, with landings in Rome, Genoa, Palermo and Golfo Aranci – could help place Rome as a global connectivity hub between Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
In 30 years of activity, Aruba has developed plenty of experience in the design and management of high-tech data centres, owned and distributed throughout Italy. The largest is located in Ponte San Pietro (BG) and features green-by-design infrastructure and facilities that comply with the highest security standards in the industry (Rating 4 ANSI/TIA-942, ISO 22237), to which is added the Hyper Cloud Data Centre in Rome, in Tecnopolo Tiburtino and at full capacity will include five independent data centres.
BlueMed is an integral part of the Blue & Raman Submarine Cable Systems project built in partnership with Google and other operators that stretch further in the Middle East up to Mumbai, India. It is among the first projects being implemented on the IMEC (India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor) set up at the G20 summit in September 2023.
Designed with an “open cable system” and “open landing station” architecture, BlueMed ensures maximum openness to other operators and the development of internet traffic interconnection ecosystems. With four fibre pairs and a capacity of over 25 Tbps per pair, Sparkle said BlueMed offers operators and businesses high-speed, high-performance international connections from Rome to all of its destinations worldwide.
Essential hub
Sparkle’s new PoP was activated at Aruba’s Hyper Cloud Data Centre (IT4), a technology campus located at the Tecnopolo Tiburtino, a district where more than 150 companies operate, ranging from aerospace to ICT, in an environment designed also to support the growth and development of new companies and start-ups. The data centre campus covers an area of 74,000 m2 and, when fully operational, will include five independent data centres for a total of 30 MW of IT power, the first of which (DC-A) is already ANSI/TIA Rating 4 certified.
“With the activation of the new PoP integrated with BlueMed, we intend to respond to the needs of companies and operators that require large international interconnection capacities,” said Sparkle CEO Enrico Bagnasco. “We bring Rome closer to the world’s major connectivity exchange points thanks to a unique, low-latency route to Marseille and Palermo, integrated with the main submarine cables crossing the Mediterranean and other destinations in Sparkle’s global network.”
“We share with Sparkle the aim of serving companies and operators, that need large capacities, with not only connectivity but also space and power within state-of-the-art data centres that are large enough to support even the most ambitious growth plans,” said Aruba CEO Stefano Cecconi. “Being able to host a Sparkle PoP, with the availability of BlueMed, is an important building block in the consolidation of our data centres as strategic assets at a national and European level and is perfectly in line with our carrier neutral philosophy.”
He added: “This approach is designed to allow customers to enjoy, in maximum autonomy, extremely reliable and high-performance internet connection solutions, and to foster the development of interconnections that benefit the entire ecosystem, making Rome an additional connectivity hub and an IT and cloud service delivery centre for the capital and all Central and Southern Italy.”
The new PoP – which already hosts key international players – adds to the four existing points of presence in Rome, increasing the footprint of the metropolitan ring, a protected and redundant system fully integrated with Sparkle’s Tier-1 global IP network “Seabone”.