SSIX - Sicilia e Sardegna Internet Exchange

SSIX (Sicilia & Sardegna Internet Exchange) is the first regional Internet Exchange Point dedicated to the islands of Sicily and Sardinia. It was established with the goal of improving the performance, resilience, and autonomy of Internet connectivity in Southern Italy. Operated by SIPORTAL, SSIX fills a critical infrastructure gap by enabling the direct exchange of data traffic that was previously forced to transit through remote nodes located in Northern Italy or abroad.

The infrastructure is physically hosted within the carrier-neutral Gallura data center, which also serves as a landing point for submarine fiber optic cables, providing direct access to both national and international routes. The interconnection between the two islands creates a true digital corridor across the Mediterranean, offering faster, more stable, and geographically closer communications.

SSIX significantly reduces latency and enhances Internet performance for users, service providers, and institutions operating in the region. It supports both IPv4 and IPv6 traffic, follows an open peering policy, and encourages participation from ISPs, cloud service providers, public networks, and content platforms. Local traffic exchange brings both economic and technical benefits, such as lower transit costs and optimized routing for latency-sensitive or mission-critical applications.

Beyond its technical impact, SSIX plays a strategic role in advancing digital sovereignty and infrastructure development in Southern Italy. It supports the growth of local data centers, cloud ecosystems, and smart services, enabling advanced scenarios like edge computing and the Internet of Things. Through its interconnection with SIPORTAL’s SI-Bone backbone and submarine cable systems, SSIX positions itself as a key node in the Mediterranean digital network.

From a technical standpoint, the infrastructure offers various bandwidth tiers, a fully redundant architecture, continuous monitoring services, and professional support. Its presence within two modern, energy-efficient data centers ensures the reliability and scalability needed to support long-term growth.

In summary, SSIX strengthens regional and international interconnection, making the Internet faster, more local, and more resilient in Sicily, Sardinia, and throughout the broader Euro-Mediterranean region.