Sparkle Launches Panama Digital Gateway

Sparkle, the first international service provider in Italy and among the top global operators, in joint venture with Trans Ocean Network (TON), a Panamanian telecommunications company, launches Panama Digital Gateway (PDG), a green open landing and connectivity data center set to become the digital hub for all Central America, the Andean region, and the Caribbean.

The event launch was under the aegis of HE Laurentino Cortizo Cohen, President of Panama, and attended by Fabrizio Nicoletti, Ambassador of the Italian Republic in Panama, David Gonzalez Solis, CEO and founder of TON, and Enrico Maria Bagnasco, CEO of Sparkle.

Panama Digital Gateway is a next generation carrier-neutral hub, the first green data center in the country, featuring state-of-the-art technologies and infrastructures to satisfy all customers’ requirements. Located in Corazal (Panama City), the new building offers 5,500 square meters of space for up to 650 equivalent racks and 3.5 MW of scalable power. It is built following the most stringent anti-seismic criteria and designed to guarantee the maximum standards of reliability and performance while minimizing its impact on the environment thanks to the adoption of the latest energy-efficient power and cooling systems available in the market.

Integrated with Sparkle’s global backbone - more than 600,000 km of fiber spanning from Europe to Africa, the Americas and Asia – Panama Digital Gateway is the landing point of Curie, the cable system connecting California to Chile with a branching unit into Panama developed by Google and Sparkle, and of new upcoming submarine cables looking for a diversified entry way to Central America, thus strengthening the role of Panama as the strategic digital hub between North and South America. For example, Colombia will benefit, through PDG and the Curie extension into Panama, of a direct and low latency route to the US West coast.

By establishing a presence in the new hub, OTTs, carriers, financial institutions, and corporations can benefit from Sparkle’s global connectivity services - including its global Tier-1 IP transit service Seabone as well as its capacity solutions and networking services – and access to other regional networks. The direct access to submarine cables provides a plus in terms of performance and resilience, as undersea systems are the information highways where Internet travel at the speed of light, enabling real-time digital services.

Fabrizio Nicoletti, Ambassador of the Republic of Italy in Panama, said: “Panama and Italy have a historic relationship working closely in collaboration and coordination programs of different disciplines, fostering international cooperation between the two countries. We are very proud to have a first level Italian enterprise as Sparkle making possible this data center, a tangible demonstration of Italy's growing interest in Panama and in the Region”.

“Panama Digital Gateway consolidates and positions Panama as the digital hub of the region, strengthening the connectivity of our Country, and becoming a strategic interconnection offer for OTTs, carriers and enterprises”, stated David Gonzalez Solis, CEO of Trans Ocean Network. “We are very pleased to be participating in the construction and operation of this open hub in conjunction with a partner of experience and global scale such as Sparkle.”

“The development of infrastructures in the Americas represents a pillar of Sparkle's plan to consolidate its positioning in the telecommunications wholesale market while reinforcing its offering of digital solutions”, explained Enrico Maria Bagnasco, CEO of Sparkle. “Panama is a natural crossroad of Central America and a bridge between the Atlantic and the Pacific as well as a strategic cross-point between North and South America, and our Panama Digital Gateway aims to be the reference landing hub of new submarine cables and the centre of choice to develop an ecosystem of interconnected players.”