Sparkle Constructs Nibble, the New Software-Defined Backbone Linking Sicily with Europe

The new ultra-long-haul photonic backbone will digitally connect Sicily with the major Points of Presence and datacenters in Europe

Sparkle, the first international service provider in Italy and among the top ten global operators, announces the construction
of Nibble, its new ultra-long-haul photonic backbone linking Sicily with the major Points of Presence (PoPs) and datacenters
in Europe.

Built upon new express fibers, Nibble will provide industry-leading speeds, low-latency, high-performance, scalable and
guaranteed connectivity services between the most important European locations, meeting carriers and enterprises’ rapidly
increasing network capacity requirements.

Featuring the breakthrough Infinera DWDM & Instant Network technologies, Nibble implements a “Software-Defined
Bandwidth” solution, leveraging on the concept of Capacity License to disaggregate the underlying hardware installation from the capacity activation.

Instant Network minimizes the time to market, reducing idle investments by activating software-defined capacity on preprovisioned optical links as customers demand for it, thus lowering business risk by shrinking the time between paying for capacity and delivering services.

Nibble ultra-performant photonic layer will progressively be integrated with Sparkle’s existing Mediterranean and Balkans
Network and with BlueMed, the new multifiber submarine cable linking Palermo and Milan via Genoa, creating a seamless
Pan Mediterranean Optical Transport Network.

The first link - planned to go live in summer 2019 - will connect Sparkle’s Sicily Hub in Palermo with Milan Caldera open
datacenter; Nibble construction is planned to continue in several phases until the end of 2020 to fully deploy the entire
Italian and European footprint and to integrate with the Mediterranean and Balkans networks.

“Sparkle confirms its strong leadership in the European telecom market with a solution that ensures top quality and efficiency
standards,” said Mario Di Mauro, Sparkle’s Chief Executive Officer.

“The Gigabit Society is demanding faster and more
sophisticated capacity services and with the Infinera Instant Network solution we can expand our geographical footprint and
satisfy customers’ needs at light speed, investing only in the capacity we need to deploy, where and when we need it.”

Sparkle is TIM Group’s fully owned Global Operator, first international service provider in Italy and among the top ten
worldwide, with a proprietary backbone of around 530,000 km of fiber spanning from Europe to Africa, the Americas and
Asia.

Leveraging its global IP, Data, Cloud, Data Center, Mobile Data and Voice Platforms, Sparkle offers a full range of ICT solutions to Internet Service Providers, OTTs, Media and Content Players, Application Service Providers, Fixed and Mobile operators as well as Multinational Enterprises. Its sales force is active worldwide and distributed over 33 countries.