GreenMed opens a high-performance corridor across the Central–Eastern Mediterranean, leveraging – for the first time – the Adriatic Sea and strengthening diversification, resilience and low-latency connectivity for carriers, cloud and content players
Rome/Dubai, 11 February 2026
Sparkle, the first international service provider in Italy and among the top global operators, announces the construction of GreenMed, a next-generation subsea cable system designed to enhance route diversity, resilience and low-latency connectivity between Europe and the Middle East. The system will be engineered and manufactured by Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), a major player in the submarine cable industry, and installed by Elettra Tlc, a company dedicated to the marine survey, installation and repairs of telecommunication cables.
GreenMed East will cross the Adriatic Sea, providing diverse optical fiber connectivity between Levant countries and the rich digital ecosystem of the Milan area; the route will touch the strategic gateways of Crete and Sicily and connect, along its path, the Balkan countries, thus supporting the growing demand driven by cloud adoption, content delivery, enterprise digitalization and emerging AI-era traffic patterns. The new system will be fully integrated into Sparkle’s broader backbone and landing-hub strategy, delivering secure and diversified international connectivity services to carriers, cloud and content players, as well as multinational enterprises.
GreenMed builds on Sparkle’s experience with BlueMed – the company’s flagship project in the Tyrrhenian Sea – and its pioneering open architecture approach. In this context, GreenMed further strengthens the open cable model allowing each fiber-pair tenant to select its preferred optical illumination architecture and vendor, in line with system design and operational requirements.
The contract between Sparkle, ASN and Elettra Tlc, executed today during Capacity Middle East 2026 in Dubai, will be in force by end of February 2026, with the first segments of the system expected to be in service by late 2028. Under the agreement ASN will be responsible for system design and manufacturing of the subsea optical infrastructure including wet plant components and associated equipment, while Elettra Tlc will carry out marine operations, including route surveys and cable installation/laying activities.
“GreenMed represents another concrete step in Sparkle’s strategy to strengthen the Mediterranean basin as a key digital gateway and to reinforce Italy’s role as a primary international connectivity hub,” said Enrico Maria Bagnasco, CEO of Sparkle. “With GreenMed in the Adriatic and BlueMed in the Tyrrhenian, Sparkle offers two highly innovative routes between Europe and the Middle East for maximum diversification and resilience.”
“ASN is proud to bring its end-to-end subsea expertise and advanced system design capabilities to GreenMed,” added Alain Biston, CEO of ASN. “This project will showcase next-generation wet plant technology, scalable capacity design and industrial quality, enabling a future-proof infrastructure that supports the most demanding applications and evolving traffic patterns.”
“Elettra is honored to be entrusted with the marine operations for GreenMed,” commented Didier Dillard, President & CEO of Elettra Tlc. “Our teams will deliver the survey and installation phases with a strong focus on safety, precision and environmental responsibility, leveraging deep experience in Mediterranean cable operations to ensure an efficient and reliable deployment.”
About Sparkle
Sparkle is TIM Group’s global operator, first international service provider in Italy and among the top worldwide, offering a full range of infrastructure and global connectivity services – capacity, IP, SD-WAN, colocation, IoT connectivity, roaming and voice – to national and international Carriers, OTTs, ISPs, Media/Content Providers, and multinational enterprises. As a leading player in the submarine cable industry, Sparkle owns and manages a network of more than 600,000 km of fiber stretching across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Americas, and Asia. Sparkle’s sales team has a global presence, with representatives in 32 countries.
Find out more about Sparkle following its X and LinkedIn profiles or visiting the website tisparkle.com
About Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN)
With over 160 years of history and 80% ownership by the French State Investment Agency (APE), Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) is a major player in the submarine cable industry, with more than 850,000 km of submerged optical systems deployed worldwide – equivalent to 21 times the Earth’s circumference.
With its 3 factories located in Europe and an exclusive fleet of 7 cable-laying vessels spread across the globe, ASN develops, designs, deploys, and maintains turnkey submarine transmission systems for telecommunications operators, content & service providers (OTT), as well as offshore oil and gas applications.
With a complete portfolio of services and a unique expertise, ASN meets specific and growing demands of its clients to deliver ever-increasing connectivity across the seas and oceans.
About Elettra Tlc
Elettra Tlc Spa is a company dedicated to the marine survey, marine installation and repairs of telecommunication submarine cables all around the world, operating a fleet of two cable ships and one survey vessel. Elettra Tlc is fully owned by Orange. Together with its sister company Orange Marine, it is a world leader in its sector of activity, representing 12% of the global cable ships fleet. It has installed more than 88 000 km of optical cables and is in charge of the maintenance of most of the submarine cables in service in the Mediterranean, Black and Red seas areas.
www.elettratlc.it, Linkedin, Instagram
Sparkle Media Contacts:
sparkle.communication@tisparkle.com
X: @TISparkle
ASN Media Contacts:
Elettra Media Contacts:
IG: @elettratlc
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