Namex opens in Bari a new Internet hub with international vocation A new regional Internet exchange point National and international, a dual vocation that will make Namex Bari a crucial connecting point of the ICT roads, improving the quality of Internet access in the region, linking Bari and the national networks with the countries of the Mediterranean basin, Middle East and Asia. Built with the aim of providing a point of interconnection between the Internet Service Providers (ISP) enabling the access and the content providers in order to improve the resilience of the Italian and international Internet, Namex Bari will contribute to reduce the latency towards the contents for the Internet users in the region, enhancing their overall user experience. In addition to the national vocation, Namex Bari will also have an international role linked to the presence of submarine cables, such as the ICT roads that connect Bari with other countries in the Mediterranean area, the Middle East and Asia. Press Release Comunicato Stampa (ITA) Content and end users need to be closer A new Internet hub for the South There is a growing need to shorten the effective distance between content and users: edge computing, gaming, streaming of Serie A and Champions League matches are just a few examples of content that requires low latency. To cope with this growing demand, content and final users need to be increasingly closer while on the other hand the network infrastructure needs to be more flexible and reliable. Namex Bari will contribute to decreasing the distance between content and Internet users in the region, improving their browsing experience and in general the quality of the Italian Internet. Supporting the growth in the region Contributing to the local development Bari will be joining the current Italian IXPs present in Milan, Rome, Turin, Padua and Palermo. The role of the new exchange will be to facilitate the flow of data and meet the need for the increasingly high performance required of the network. “Like other hubs in different sectors such as ports, stations and airports, Namex Bari will contribute to making Southern Italy, and in particular Apulia and the surrounding regions, richer in opportunities and more easily accessible. In fact, Internet Exchange Points are physical places, hosted inside datacenters, where companies providing Internet services gather to exchange their users’ traffic and digital services; they are not “simply” Internet traffic hubs and optimization points, each of them is, indeed, an attractor that allows for the development of many different sectors, ranging from industrial to tourism. In a nutshell, Namex Bari will be an infrastructure that will contribute to the growth of the region thanks to its presence.” commented Maurizio Goretti, Namex CEO. The Bari hub will be managed directly by Namex, a consortium of Internet operators based in Rome, counting more than 170 companies in the Internet industry, including the big names of the global Internet (e.g. Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Netflix), all the main national operators and the many other regional ISPs, i.e. operators with a regional or provincial network extension. “Apulia is a region particularly rich in ISPs among those of Southern Italy and it is not yet optimally covered by the other IXPs present in Italy” concluded Maurizio Goretti. Namex Bari can provide access to 2 submarine cables An international vocation In addition to the national vocation, Namex Bari will also have an international role linked to the presence of submarine cables, such as the ICT roads that connect Bari with other countries in the Mediterranean area, the Middle East and Asia. In particular, all the operators present in the Namex Bari infrastructure will be able to benefit from the presence of Retelit, owner of the Bari cable landing station of the optical fiber submarine system AAE-1, a high speed connectivity between Asia, Africa and Europe, and host of the Italian terminal of IG-1, the cable connecting Italy and Greece. “These ICT highways, together with the presence of Namex Bari, can give the city the role of Intercontinental Internet Port. Thanks to the presence in the region of landing stations of international submarine cables, the Namex Bari carrier neutral data center could be a candidate to host content for users in some countries of the Mediterranean basin and to become a point of interconnection between European and non-European operators.” said Renato Brunetti, Namex President. “We are pleased with the initiative of Namex to start a new IXP in our city because we believe it will represent a new attractor of development opportunities for the territory. The city of Bari is confirmed as the nerve center in the field of Information Technology for the South of the country and the Mediterranean area. The city is already at the junction of several submarine cables that connect Europe to the Middle East, Asia and other Mediterranean countries. The presence of an IXP and a carrier neutral datacenter managed by Namex will be determining factors of the strategy that aims to make our city a reference point in the digital innovation.” said the deputy mayor and councilor for technological innovation of the Municipality of Bari, Eugenio Di Sciascio. International submarine cables in Bari AAE-1 This cable connects Bari to: France (Marseille), Greece (Crete), Egypt (Suez canal), Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Yemen, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Pakistan, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China. View on the Map IG-1 The Italy-Greece 1 cable owned by WIS Telecom. View on the Map Provider, Carrier and ISPs Operators that announce their presence or have shown their interest to be present at Namex Bari CONTACTS If you are interested to join or need additional information, please contact: sales@namex.it About Namex Namex – Roma Internet eXchange Point is a non-profit, neutral exchange and interconnection point between national and international Internet service providers (ISPs), counting more than 170 Autonomous Systems (AS). Namex is the main Internet hub of Central and Southern Italy, a crucial meeting point where important international providers of streaming, cloud services and content, and national access providers connect. The Namex consortium also counts many local ISPs operating in Italy, particularly in the South of the country. The purpose of Namex is to provide a neutral platform on which local and international operators can benefit from the interconnection services provided by the Consortium, improving the Internet infrastructure of Southern Italy. Namex has established itself as a strategic point of presence for all ISPs operating in Italy, and it is now a point of reference for all the operators which need to provide high-quality service throughout the country. namex.it