Sparkle announces two major new subsea cable projects

International service provider Sparkle has announced a collaboration with Google, among a number of other companies, to build the Blue and Raman submarine cable systems. Blue will connect Italy, France, Greece and Israel, while Raman will connect Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Oman and India.

Each cable system will be equipped with 16 fibre pairs and embrace the innovative concepts of open cable, supporting multiple fibre tenants, and open landing station, enabling competitive access to the cable termination points.

The two systems, says Sparkle, set a new reference in terms of diversification, scalability and latency throughout these geographies.

Blue will be deployed along a new northbound route in the Mediterranean, crossing the Strait of Messina, rather than following the traditional route through the Sicily Channel. As a result, says Sparkle, internet service providers, carriers, telecom operators, content providers, enterprises and institutions will benefit from high-speed internet and state-of-the-art capacity services with what the company describes as unparalleled diversity and performances.

Within the Blue System, the BlueMed submarine cable is now Sparkle’s own private domain, sharing its wet components with four additional fibre pairs and an initial design capacity of more than 25 Tbps per fibre pair. It extends up to Jordan (Aqaba) with additional private branches into France (Corsica), Greece (Chania – Crete), Italy (Golfo Aranci – Sardinia and Rome), Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Turkey and Cyprus. More destinations will be added in the future.

BlueMed’s flexible design allows seamless express connections throughout the Mediterranean Basin, with what is described as unprecedented latency and spectral efficiency, and sophisticated regional subsystems, based on specific customer requirements.

In addition, Sparkle says its Genoa Open Landing Platform is set to become the alternative priority access for other upcoming submarine cables looking for a diversified entry to Europe, backhauled to Milan’s rich digital marketplace, and thus a new reference gateway between Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Europe.

Blue and Raman are expected to be ready for service in 2024, with the Tyrrhenian part of BlueMed planned to be operational in 2022. The other partners in this enterprise will, presumably, be named in due course. Developing Telecoms