NAMEX NEWSLETTER | JANUARY 2025

CONSORTIUM

Italy, strategic Hub in the Mediterranean: achievements and future outlook

— By Maurizio Goretti, Namex CEO

2024 concluded with significant results for Italy’s role as a strategic hub in the center of the Mediterranean. The achieved goals lay the foundation for further developments in 2025, consolidating our country’s centrality in the region’s digital and infrastructural routes.

Among ongoing projects, the completion of fundamental segments of the BlueMed submarine cable, built by Sparkle, stands out. This connection, touching Genoa, Rome, Palermo, and Sardinia, is already operational, ensuring low-latency connections between Northern and Southern Italy via the marine route in the Tyrrhenian Sea.

The cable is part of the Blue Submarine Cable System project, developed in collaboration with Google and other operators. This system will connect various Mediterranean hubs, such as Genoa, Rome, Palermo, Marseille, and other strategic destinations like Cyprus, Israel, and Libya, helping strengthen Italy’s role as an international digital hub and is part of a global system that integrates with the Raman segment, extending toward the Middle East and Asia. A distinctive feature of the Blue Submarine Cable System is the choice to avoid passage through Egypt, a region often considered a critical point for Internet connectivity due to the concentration of submarine cables.

NAMEX OBSERVATORY

Il punto di gennaio

— By Flavio Luciani, Namex CTO

Last month (December), Namex recorded a significant milestone in Internet traffic. During a recent UEFA Champions League match between Juventus and Man City, broadcast exclusively on Amazon Prime Video, a peak of 972 Gbps was reached. This result highlights the growing impact of live event streaming and Namex infrastructure’s ability to efficiently handle increasingly higher traffic volumes.
Among the significant data, a new record was also set for IPv6 traffic, with a peak of 35 Gbps, surpassing the previous maximum recorded during another major sporting event. This milestone reflects the gradual adoption of IPv6, a protocol that is becoming essential to meet the growing needs of the digital ecosystem.

REGULATORY AFFAIRS

Reflections on the European Commission's regulatory agenda

— By Innocenzo Genna, Legal specialist in EU digital policy, competition and liberalization regulations

For European digital regulation, we’re at the beginning not only of a new year but of a new five-year mandate of the European Commission, which began operating at the end of 2024 with significant changes, starting with the replacement of Commissioners Vestager (competition) and Breton (digital), replaced by Spain’s Ribera and Finland’s Virkkunen respectively. It’s therefore reasonable to wonder what can be expected from such a profoundly renewed institution regarding prominent positions in competition and digital areas.

ANIX ALBANIA

ANIX: how Namex brought a Neutral IXP to Albania

— By Daniele Arena, peering developer

Bologna, Emilia Romagna Regional Auditorium, November 3, 2016. Lunch break at ITNOG 2. It had been several months since I last saw Maurizio Goretti, CEO of Namex. Maurizio and I had an on-and-off professional relationship, so to speak. Colleagues at CASPUR in different groups in 98-99, we reunited for two startup stories: Namex itself in 2002-2008, and then (under CASPUR-CINECA) the design of the Albanian academic network in 2010-2012. Two different stories, to be told at other times, but which would converge right there in Bologna in November 2016. In fact, while in the early ’10s we were working on the Albanian academic network project, which then actually came to life and is now operational under the name RASH (Rrjeti Akademik Shqiptar), we realized that besides being one of the last countries without a research network, Albania was also one of the last countries without an exchange point.

SUBMARINE CABLES

Dal Baltico a Fiumicino: perché Internet si lega sempre di più al mare

— By Christian Cinetto, Namex Head of Communication and Content

he topic of submarine cables has been recurring in newspapers and TV for several months: from the damages recorded in the Baltic Sea (where possible sabotage is suspected) to continuous references to hybrid warfare or “suspicious” ships that might be deliberately cutting cables. In reality, attention to the “Internet sea” isn’t new at all: underwater infrastructure has existed for decades and has guaranteed the circulation of most global traffic for years. It’s only now, however, that public opinion is truly beginning to realize how intimately the sea and connectivity are linked. Most of what we do online – watching streaming videos, sending emails, participating in international video calls, shopping online – passes through submarine cables. These are fiber optic networks, protected by layers of metal and special plastics to withstand pressures, currents, and (to a lesser extent) even “curious” attacks from marine fauna.

STREAMING

DAZN: Streaming is serious business, just like football

A conversation with Vincenzo Roggio, Head of Distribution at DAZN

(An interview by Christian Cinetto)

The evening of September 21, 2019, is one of those evenings that every football fan knows perfectly well in its more saturated colors than usual, in the radio echoes, in the morning teasing: it’s the first derby of the season between Inter and Milan. This time, however, there’s something different. For the first time, the derby is broadcast exclusively via streaming, a crucial test for DAZN and for Vincenzo Roggio, current head of distribution of the platform.
“I remember sitting in front of the TV with my laptop on my legs, one eye on the match and the other on the statistics, checking every detail,” he recalls. “It was a historic moment, and it went well, both for the company and for me, an Inter fan.”
Year after year, video streaming via Internet evolves technologically with great speed. Vincenzo Roggio represents one of the key figures at DAZN, the platform that has revolutionized how millions of people access sporting events in over 200 countries worldwide and, since 2018, football viewing in Italy. What follows is our chat.

Let’s start with the basics: who is Vincenzo Roggio and how did you get to DAZN?

I started working in the streaming world almost by chance, when I was still a student. I sent my resume to Sky and that’s where it all began. I fell in love with streaming and never left it. After Sky, I moved to Limelight and in 2018 I landed at DAZN, right during the service launch in Italy. DAZN was then only present in Japan, Canada, and Germany. In six years, we’ve become a global platform, present in over 200 territories.

News

NEWS from NAMEX and SURROUNDINGS

» On December 11, during the final evening of the 2024 UEFA Champions League, Namex reached a new traffic peak of 972 Gbps. On the same evening, Meta experienced global issues reported as “technical issues,” delaying the celebration of our next milestone. In any case, this marks the eighth time in 2024 that NAMEX has set a new traffic peak record. We grew from 621 Gbps on February 2 to 972 Gbps 10 months later. An increase of over 56%.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7272897640822898689

» On December 6, the annual ANIX meeting took place in Tirana. ANIX is Albania’s only neutral exchange point, supported and managed by NAMEX and RASH, the Albanian academic network. The high-profile institutional event featured representatives from the EU, the Albanian government, and the Italian Embassy. The discussed theme, “A digital Albania towards a digital Europe,” brought together ISPs, regulators, and government officials. NAMEX’s role as a facilitator will continue in 2025 with new initiatives, such as supporting ALNOG, informal bi-monthly meetings, and leveraging RMNOG and BARINOG’s experience.
https://anix2024.anix.al

» Last year, NAMEX became the owner of the Caesar data center, the historic site of Rome’s first exchange point. With great responsibility comes great effort: several infrastructure improvement projects began immediately, and by the end of the year, the first major goal was achieved—the replacement of the cooling unit. The process, from design to replacement and commissioning, took several months but was successfully completed without any service interruptions.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/namex_caesar-activity-7279612097116712960-LFSz?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

» We published the first season of our inaugural podcast, Bitporto. All 8 episodes are available for freeon major streaming platforms. Bitporto explores internet exchange points from the perspective of key industry figures: Maurizio Goretti, Flavio Luciani, Antonio Baldassarra, Tiziano Tofoni, Doug Madory, Christian Kauffmann, Corrado Giustozzi, and Renato Brunetti.
Introductions and interviews are conducted by Christian Cinetto of NAMEX.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7274725853350035456