The new data centre will be on the Greek island of Crete, which is in the middle of the Mediterranean, halfway to Egypt and Libya.
George Nolis (pictured), CEO of Lancom, said: “After the Balkan Gate in Kalochori, Thessaloniki, the Balkan Gate Crete was the next logical step to complete the Thessaloniki–Athens–Crete axis, which will be the new telecommunications route in the wider region of the Balkans and the south-eastern Mediterranean.”
Lancom has not specified where in Crete it will build the new data centre, though it says it will be alongside a cable landing station, of which there are three so far on the north coast of Crete, according to TeleGeography: at Nopigeia, Chania and Korakia, three beaches stretching along the north-west coast of the island.
Nolis said: “We are creating a completely new, optimal transit from the Middle East, north-east Africa and the remote regions of Asia, to central and north-eastern Europe. In this way, we put an end to the current regime of submarine fibre optics, which simply passed our country and redefine our position on the world telecommunications map.”
Lancom said this will be a tier-3 carrier neutral data centre, the first in Crete, “with the direct goal of concentrating all the optical submarine fibers that land from the Mediterranean and the Aegean, in the existing and future cable landing stations”.
Lancom said it “has set itself the goal of maximum energy efficiency of the data centre with innovative cutting-edge solutions that will be implemented by its strategic partners”.
Balkan Gate Crete will be directly connected to the Balkan Gate data centre in Kalochori, Thessaloniki, “with the safest and fastest data transit from the Mediterranean to the Balkans and vice versa”.
It will be a “neutral point of connection of all the fibre optic providers of the Mediterranean with Greece and consequently with the Balkans”.
Lancom also runs privately owned metropolitan fibre networks in Athens and Thessaloniki, providing enterprise fiber to the business connectivity solutions at speeds from 1000Mbps upwards.
