Monday, Jan 12, 2009

Prysmian Cables & Systems today announced that its current contract with Andorra Telecom will help the Principality of Andorra to become the first country in the world to provide a direct optical fibre link to all homes (FTTH) and businesses. The project, which utilizes Prysmian’s innovative VertiCasa™ cable system, began earlier this year and by the time of its completion in 2010 all 35,000 homes and business premises will be connected by fibre providing them with ultra high speed broadband services.

The project is based around Prysmian’s VertiCasa™ cable system, which is designed specifically to bring optical fibre directly to residents in all types of buildings, including high-rise and multiple dwelling units (MDU). VertiCasa™ was chosen for the project due to the easy fibre access and break-out it provides, reducing installation times and the need for skilled labour, therefore lowering overall costs. The system comprises a main riser cable of up to 48 fibres, which can be branched directly to individual subscribers on different floors of an MDU, without the need for splicing of the fibre within the riser of the building.

Mr Jaume Salvat, CEO of Andorra Telecom said, “We are extremely proud to be implementing such a project here in Andorra. It demonstrates the commitment of Andorra Telecom to providing the best possible information infrastructure across the country and with the support of Prysmian and the VertiCasa™ system we will soon have all our citizens provided with a direct fibre link.”

Director of Prysmian’s global telecoms cable and optical fibre business, Mr Giovanni B Scotti added, “We are delighted to be working with Andorra Telecom on this groundbreaking project. The VertiCasa™ system was designed with the MDU environment in mind and is proving to be ideally suited to the infrastructure requirements here in Andorra.”

With the current global trend towards FTTH Prysmian has recently been involved in a number of other projects around the world including Europe, Middle East, Russia and China amongst others, utilizing VertiCasa™ together with other proprietary products from its FTTH portfolio including Sirocco^® and Quickdraw^®.

Prysmian

A leading player in the industry of high-technology cables and systems for energy and telecommunication, the Prysmian Group is a truly global company with sales exceeding 5 billion Euro in 2007 and a strong position in higher-added value market segments. With its two business, Energy Cables & Systems (submarine and underground cables for power transmission and distribution for industrial applications and for the distribution of electricity to residential and commercial buildings) and Telecom Cables & Systems (optical cables and fibres and copper cables for video, data and voice transmission), Prysmian boasts a global presence with subsidiaries in 36 countries, 54 plants in 21 countries, 7 Research & Development Centres in Europe, USA and South America, and over 12,000 employees. Specializing in the development of products and systems designed to meet clients’ specific requirements, Prysmian’s key strengths include a focus on Research & Development, the capacity to be innovative on products and production processes, and the use of advanced proprietary technologies. Prysmian is listed on the Milan Stock Exchange Blue Chip index.

Andorra Telecom

ANDORRA TELECOM is constituted as a public law entity, with its own legal personality and autonomous organisation. The object of ANDORRA TELECOM is the management and exploitation, exclusively, in Andorran territory, of telecommunications services in general – fixed telephones, mobile telephones, data transmission, FTTH services, Internet  and other auxiliary or supplementary telecommunicationservices – including matters referring to international communications. ANDORRA TELECOM is also responsible for managing the technical infrastructures and national broadcasting networks for radio and digital terrestrial television.

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