Unitirreno digital data cable lands in Genoa
80 million investment for the first 24-pair fibre-optic structure. Connecting Sicily to the Ligurian capital
Eighty million investment, three years of work and an underwater cable, for the transport of digital data, over a thousand kilometres long. These are the numbers of Unitirreno, a system that was presented yesterday in Genoa and that will become, for Italy, a connectivity infrastructure of strategic importance, connecting Sicily (Mazara del Vallo) to the Ligurian capital, after having passed through Rome-Fiumicino and Olbia.
Unitirreno is a partnership between the Infrastrutture per la crescita fund, set up and managed by Azimut libera impresa, the tlc operator Unidata, and a number of operators in the sector. 'The investment,' explained Renato Brunetti, CEO of both Unitirreno and Unidata, 'is structured with 36 million equity and the rest coming from a bank loan from Intesa Sanpaolo and Bpm. The cable represents a fundamental bridge for the Middle East and for the international cables that pass through the Strait of Sicily. It is a work with such a capacity that it will be able to last 30 years: we are talking about 624 terabits, when the entire traffic of Africa is currently worth 30 terabits. In short, the cable will be able to support the demand of the coming years as well'.
In fact, he pointed out, Unitirreno is 'the first open cable system with 24 operational fibre pairs in the world'. Among other things, Brunetti added, 'there is the need to balance the weight of Marseille, which has a very high concentration of cables, with a problem that is also strategic: if an accident happens in Marseille, the internet stops in the whole of Europe, if not the whole world. We therefore need to balance with another site and Genoa is perfect for this'.
The Azimut libera impresa fund, has subscriptions for over 750 million, from 26 institutional investors and has launched investments, for over 900 million, in 28 projects in Italia; "and this one," said Andrea Cornetti, chairman of Unitirreno and ad real estate & infrastructures of Azimut libera impresa, "is certainly one of the most important.
In Genoa, Unitirreno arrives via a kilometre-long bore pipe (i.e. a cable housing pipe) buried under the seabed. The urban section towards the Lagaccio digital hub uses an existing tunnel, with an earthquake-proof route 1.2 metres below street level.
