Wednesday Bytes: Sparkle, MSAR, Lumen

Two bits of news from EMEA and Asia, and one from the border of hyperscale and network operators:

Sparkle has sold some interesting infrastructure to Kush Investments. The UAE-based investment firm is tapping Sparkle for a virtual fiber solution from Mumbai on the west coast of India, through Djibouti in the Red Sea, and all the way to Europe via landing stations in Italy and France. The two companies also hinted at further areas of cooperation, possibly in East Africa.

Some new fiber infrastructure will soon be in place in Peninsular Malaysia. The infrastructure provider MSAR and the JLand Group, which is part of Johor Corporation, have signed an MoU to connect the Sedenek Tech Park (STeP) with the Digital Superhighway Network, which will connect to both Singapore and Thailand. The DCI will leverage dual access and be ready in Q4 of 2023, extending from Johor to the north and south of the peninsula.

And Lumen has teamed up with two of the biggest hyperscale technology companies for a major new network interconnection ecosystem. ExaSwitch will sit between large network backbones and clouds, providing optical switching on demand. Each participant will have its own ExaSwitch optical hardware and can choose it’s own source of fiber connectivity, after which they can self-provision at their own pace with Lumen acting as the administrator.  They’ve started off with a focus on the major hubs in Chicago, Dallas and northern Virginia.  Whether other big hyperscalers and network operators will sign on will be interesting to watch. 

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Categories: Datacenter · Fiber Networks · Undersea cables