We are making several announcements.
Firstly, TI Sparkle is launching a new hub in Sicily. It is a three storey facility in Palermo with an initial space of 1500sqm, dedicated to tele-housing services which will be offered to carriers, ISPs and content players, as well as provide a better internet experience for the region. The hub will be ready for service in May 2015.
At the same time TI Sparkle is in final negotiations with one of the industry's largest and most advanced peering platforms worldwide to be operational at TI Sparkle’s latest next-generation data centre in Palermo that opens up to the ecosystem of ISPs and content players.
How will TI Sparkle's new facility in Sicily act as a hub for the Mediterranean and beyond?
The facility in Sicily has been designed to become a leading IP hub in the Mediterranean basin where content providers can meet ISPs and peer directly in the premises.
Located closer to North Africa, the Mediterranean and the Middle East than any other European peering point, the facility is connected to all cable landing stations in Sicily. It will be served by TI Sparkle’s Tier 1 grade IP transit service Seabone, and will provide top quality and cost efficient connectivity services with reduced latency and lower bandwidth costs.
In addition, Sicily Hub’s open and resilient configuration supports Carriers and ISPs that want to enhance the redundancy of their networks, while enjoying a rich ecosystem and market place of multi-breed interconnected players.
You mentioned a new partnership is in its final negotiations phase, can you tell us more or is it too early?
No it is not too early. TI Sparkle is in final negotiations with one of the industry’s largest and most advanced peering platforms, which will become operational at TI Sparkle’s data centre in Palermo.
Once finalised, this partnership will be an important milestone in creating a major IP hub in the middle of the Mediterranean. This will help better serve ISPs in the area, including Africa and the Gulf, by bringing worldwide content directly to their doorsteps. And this is only a first step of a larger regional cooperation.
How do you view the demand for IP in the Middle East region?
If on one hand we want to attract content to our network, at the same time we need to continue to steadily expand in order to increase capillarity in high growth regions like the Middle East where we witness a growing demand for sophisticated IP services.
What new opportunities are there for carriers in the cloud?
We predict there will be more convergence between connectivity and cloud solutions.
This new opportunity will integrate new services over the IP layer. For example, more and more enterprises have critical applications running on cloud that require more reliable and quality connectivity solutions.
Specifically, layer 2 Ethernet and layer 3 VPN solutions will support these new needs.
TI Sparkle is becoming part of this trend by entering into the largest cloud ecosystems, such as Equinix Cloud Exchange, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.
These partnerships will help us deliver new services to support future functionalities, such as self-provisioning and bandwidth on demand.
