Nibble is Sparkle’s new European network based on software-defined tech.
Sparkle is the international arm of Italy’s TIM. Nibble, will be extended to London, Amsterdam and Brussels, and describes itself as the first pan-Mediterranean optical network.
The expansion was announced at the Sicily Hub in Palermo between Sparkle’s CEO Elisabetta Romano (pictured) and Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs Manlio Di Stefano.
Nibble has a 6,500 km photonic backbone and connects Sparkle’s two major submarine landing stations in Sicily – Palermo and Catania – with Milan, Marseille, Frankfurt and Paris to the west and with Athens,Istanbul and Tel Aviv to the east.
Low latency and resilience
The connectivity is provided by different fibre backbones to ensure maximum reliability and uses DWDM technologies to achieve “high performance, low latency and the highest speeds available on the market, with scalable and guaranteed services to meet the growing demand of companies and operators,” according to Sparkle.
By July 2021, Nibble will extend a further 6,300 km to northern Europe, interconnecting London, Amsterdam and Brussels, reaching a total length of 12,800 km with a redundant network architecture for seamless connectivity from the Mediterranean basin to Europe.
“Sparkle demonstrates once again its pioneering role in the global telecom Industry, reaffirming Italy’s leadership in Europe and in the Mediterranean” declares Romano. “Today, we can offer our customers instant activation of seamless, secure and ultra-reliable capacity services.”
Sicily Hub
The Sicily Hub is the technological heart and intelligence of the Sparkle network and the main exchange point for Internet traffic in the Mediterranean, due to to its proximity to North Africa and the Middle East and to the connection with all international cables landing in Sicily.
By 2022, Sicily Hub will be also the landing point of BlueMed, the new multi-fibre submarine cable that will cross the Tyrrhenian Sea connecting Sicily with Genoa and Milan with up to 50% latency reduction compared to terrestrial cables.