Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 20 regions of Italy. With its geographic advantage, Sicily is a strategic location for subsea cables connecting Asia, Europe and Africa.
There are now 19 subsea cables landing in Sicily, at cable landing stations in Palermo, Catania, Mazara del Vallo, Pozzallo andTrapani.
Subsea cables landing in Palermo:
Subsea cables landing in Catania:
- IMEWE
- Italy-Malta
- MedNautilus Submarine System
- Epic Malta-Sicily Cable System (EMSCS) (formerly Vodafone Malta-Sicily Cable System (VMSCS))
- SMW5
Subsea cables landing in Mazara del Vallo:
- Columbus-III
- Didon
- GO-1 Mediterranean Cable System
- HANNIBAL System
- Italy-Libya
- Janna
- Lev Submarine System
- NENA/GBI (MENA and GBI share fiber pairs in the same cable)
- SMW3
Subsea cables landing in Pozzallo:
- Melita 1
Subsea cables landing in Trapani:
- Trapani-Kelibia
There are two major data centers in Sicily, Sicily Hub and Open Med Hub.
Sicily Hub, also known as the Sicily Open Landing & Interconnection Hub, is located in Palermo, owned and operated by Telecom Italia Sparkle. Sicily Hub is connected to all the cable landing stations in Sicily and can intercept most of the submarine cables that cross the Mediterranean. Sicily Hub is one of DE-CIX's GlobePEER locations. Sicily Hub is one of the three carrier neutral PoPs for the SEA-ME-WE 5 (SMW5) subsea cable which lands at the Catania CLS.
Open Med Hub (OMH), located in Palermo, is owned and operated by a consortium comprising GTT Italy, Fastweb, Retelit, etc. Open Med Hub (OMH) is a carrier-nuetral and open exchange and data center campus in the Mediterranean. Retelit, one member of the AAE-1 consortium, has extended AAE-1 capacity from its Bari CLS to Open Med Hub.