Friday Int’l Bytes: RETN, Web Werks, Sparkle, Colt, KDDI, DriveNets

A bunch of international infrastructure news to catch up with before the weekend:

RETN has completed its new route between Stockholm and Helsinki across the Baltic Sea. The two Scandinavian capitals have been connected via just 450km of fiber with a 4.45ms roundtrip latency. The expansion adds diversity to the northern east-west reach of RETN’s pan-European footprint.

The JV between Web Werks and Iron Mountain has paved the way for new expansion plans in Mumbai. They have acquired land in Rabale, Navi Mumbai upon which they plan to build a third data center. If all goes well, MUM-3 will add 32MW of IT load and will go live in the second half of 2025, which is something over 2 years away yet.

Sparkle’s extension plans for the BlueMed cable gained a bit more governmental support this week. The Italian international network operator has signed an MoU with Libya Postal Telecommunication and Technology Holding Company (LPTIC). Plans for BlueMed call for multiple landings in Libya to connect up with the cable, which connects Marseille and Genoa with the eastern Mediterranean.

Colt has polished off its fiber upgrade through the Channel Tunnel. The new G.652D/G657 dark fiber is the first new infrastructure on this route in some 25 years. Colt and Getlink won a 25-year exclusive contract to install and operate the infrastructure through the tunnel, which connects the UK with France and thus is a key diverse path between the markets of London and Paris.

And DriveNets says KDDI has deployed its Network Cloud solution. KDDI will use the technology as its internet gateway peering router, enabling them to scale services quickly. DriveNets Network Cloud is part of the trend toward disaggregation of software and hardware in routing infrastructure. The company established a subsidiary in Tokyo a couple years ago.

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Categories: Datacenter · Interconnection · Internet Backbones · Software · Undersea cables