Telecom Italia-subsidiary Sparkle and Unitirreno have signed an agreement to land the Unitirenno subsea cable in Sparkle’s Genoa landing station.
Unitirreno is owned by telecoms, cloud, and IoT company Unidata, the Infrastructure Fund for ESG Growth of Azimut Libera Impresa, and a team of senior telecom executives.
Plans for the Unitirreno subsea cable system were confirmed in February last year.
The new submarine cable system will cover approximately 1,030km, connecting Mazara del Vallo in Sicily and Sardinia, as well as a branch to Rome.
The open cable system will have a total capacity of 480 and is expected to be ready for service by Q2 of 2025.
Under the agreement, Unitirreno will use Sparkle’s Genoa landing station on the Western European coastline. The station interconnects to the Genoa Digital Hub, a neutral colocation facility with links to the Ge-DIX Internet Exchange and other European terrestrial networks.
The landing station is already being used by the BlueMed and BlueRaman cable systems.
Unitirreno said the agreement will allow its cable to gain quick access to European hubs without impacting the environment and the city, saving administrative costs and reducing complexity.
“This agreement further enriches the Liguarian digital ecosystem and confirms our Genoa landing platform as a reference alternative for more submarine cables seeking diversified entry into Europe,” said Enrico Bagnasco, CEO of Sparkle.
Renato Brunetti, president and CEO of Unidata, said: “We are very pleased with the agreement with Sparkle, which represents not only a guarantee in terms of reliability and security but also an opportunity to explore further collaborations in the future. We are convinced that this agreement will make a significant contribution to the development of an increasingly advanced interconnection system, improving the quality of services and paving the way for new innovations.”
Sparkle operates data centers in Greece, Sicily, and Turkey. Sparkle announced plans for a new GreenMed cable in the Adriatic Sea earlier this year.
The company is also an investor in the Italy-Monaco, Italy-Albania, Italy-Croatia, Italy-Malta, Trapani-Kelibia, MedNautilus, IMEWE, SeaMeWe-3, and SeaMeWe-5 cables.
Investment firm KKR is looking to acquire Sparkle as TIM looks to dispose of some of its assets.
