Pirelli: $125mln contract for Silk Route link
Pirelli announces $125 million contract for Silk Route submarine optical system in Eastern Mediterranean
Milan, 5 March 2001 - Pirelli Submarine Telecom Systems SA (Pirelli) announces the signing today of a major contract for the construction of phase 1 of the Silk Route optical fibre regional submarine cable network for the Southern Europe, Balkan and Eastern Mediterranean (SEBAEM) market.
The system will be based on advanced DWDM technology and will consist of a repeaterless link between Athens and Chania and a repeatered link between Athens and Chioggia. The terrestrial connection to Padova will complete the network that will span for a length of over 2,000km. Branch trunks for intermediate connections to Southern Italy, Slovenia and Croatia are also foreseen.
The contract is valued at approximately $125 million, Pirelli will be providing to Silk Route Holdings SA (Silk Route), a full " turnkey" service solution comprising cable manufacture, marine installation, line terminal equipment, repeater system electronics and system commissioning. Siemens AG will be contributing to the system implementation by providing, as a primary sub-contractor to Pirelli, SDH elements that will route and protect the initial volume of traffic carried by the system. The Pirelli DWDM technology supplied is also able to carry traffic to be switched also with IP/ATM technology for future application. The Marine Survey will be initiated first for the complete phase 1 cable routing, as well as cable and amplifier manufacturing. The " Ready for Commercial Service" (RFCS) date for the initial unrepeatered system, to terminate at the Silk Route Internet Data Centre (IDC) in Athens, is planned for the 4th Quarter of 2001.
Pirelli will design, manufacture and install the submarine cable link between the Silk Route IDC facility in Athens, Greece, and the Silk Route IDC facility in Padova, Northern Italy, with onward connection to Milan, using a 6 fibre-pair, DWDM repeatered cable system with a capacity of 3.84 Terabit/s. A separate 24 fibre-pair, unrepeatered cable (with similar 3.84 Terabit/s capacity), will link Athens to Crete, with onward connectivity Eastwards to the Middle East and Australasia, via existing Mediterranean cable systems. The capability for massive full channel (uncompressed) video transmission and IP streaming capability, for the 2004 Olympic games in Athens, have been a significant criteria in the design of the Silk Route network.
Pirelli Submarine Telecom Systems Chief Executive Officer, Carlo Mazzantini remarked, " Pirelli is pleased to have been working for more than eight months with Silk Route on this important project for the SEBAEM region. Pirelli recognise that in Europe's deregulated telecommunications market, turnkey solutions, system integration support and reduced time-to-market are of paramount importance. Recent contract awards show that Operators are increasingly turning to Pirelli as the supplier of choice when cost, certainty, timing and performance are critical and a strong team building activity with the Purchasers is a key successful factor"
Alan Robinson, Silk Route Holding's President and Chief Executive Officer observed, " Signing the contract with Pirelli is the pivotal start to the process of providing modern telecommunications access to the SEBAEM region, which has taken more than three years in the licensing process in Greece alone. Our link to Crete will be operational by the 4th Quarter of 2001, and to Milan in the 2nd Quarter of 2002, allowing Silk Route to interconnect its IDC customers world-wide through capacity agreements with other international carriers also present in Crete and Milan" .
Dave Happy, Vice President Regulation and Planning for Silk Route observed, " The detailed surveying of over 2000 Km of seabed is a very complex process and it is a fact that unlike on land, there is no global database of seabed studies, so Pirelli's detailed knowledge of our routing based on their previous cable deployments, is enormously important to us." " The largest part of our route is in fact in Italian waters. No company has done as much work in this area as Pirelli, so they are the logical choice for operators wanting to deploy systems in the Mediterranean. We are committing to start the process now that we have the Pirelli contract signed and the key licenses in place" .
Silk Route has recently secured, its individual licenses in Italy for network infrastructure deployment and voice services to complement its already awarded Greek submarine cable construction, operation and landing licences, as well satellite ground station and VSAT licences.
For further information:
Ivan Domp
Pirelli Press Office
Phone +39 02 85354270