16
December
2002
|
00:00
Europe/Amsterdam

Pirelli Awarded the Farice contract

PRESS RELEASE

 

 

PIRELLI WINS MAJOR CONTRACT IN 2002 IN THE WORLDWIDE SUBMARINE TELECOM SECTOR, VALUED AT MORE THAN 30 MILLION EUROS

 

 

A 1,400KM LONG FIBER-OPTIC LINK WILL INTERCONNECT NETWORKS OF ICELAND, FAROE ISLANDS AND SCOTLAND
SYSTEM WILL SUPPORT THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE REGION
SUBMARINE CABLE WILL BE MANUFACTURED AT ARCO FELICE (NEAPLES) PLANT, OPTICAL EQUIPMENT AT PADERNO DUGNANO (MILAN)

 

 

Milan, 16th December 2002 - Pirelli has been awarded a contract from Icelandic company Farice Hf - a turn-key fiber-optic submarine system, worth more than 30 million euros, that will interconnect Icelandic, Faroese and Scottish telecommunication networks, allowing for the transmission of voice, data and multimedia broadband services.

 

 

The contest, the most significant in the world in 2002, saw Pirelli prevailing over the competition of all the major technology suppliers worldwide; the contract confirms Group's leadership, technological excellence and reliability in the Submarine Telecom Cables and Systems sector. The project foresees the manufacturing and laying of a 1,400 km long submarine fiber-optic system, one of the most technologically advanced, capable with an ultimate transmission capacity of 640 Gigabit/second, equivalent to more than 10 million simultaneous phone calls.

" Although the unprecedented crisis of the telecom equipment industry" , commented Kevin Riddett, Managing Director of Pirelli Telecom Cables and Systems. " Pirelli was awarded this very significant contract, for which all technological suppliers contended. Pirelli has been recognized as one of the most reliable and technologically advanced partners for this kind of system, which are the most challenging ones in the industry. In order to realize these systems, it's necessary to have strong competences in the production of premium fiber optic and reliable submarine equipment as well as in network design and cable laying" .

" This submarine telecommunication system is very important for Iceland, since we need to improve our connections with the other Countries" Mr. Sturla Bodvarsson, Communication Minister of Iceland, added. " The majority of our daily activities requires connection to efficient telecommunication networks, which means for us submarine optical cables whose reliability is extremely important" .

Controlled by Iceland Telecom with the participation of Faroese Telecom and other local operators, Farice Hf. was created thanks to the commitment of the national Governments and telecom operators of Iceland and Faroese Islands to give a major drive to the development of the telecommunication network in the Region.

IBM Business Consulting Services has prepared the Business Plan and Throstur Sigurdsson, an IBM Consultant has been contracted as the CEO for the preparation phase: " Farices technical experts evaluated the offers from the various bidders and came to the conclusion that Pirellis offer was the right choice, considering cost, capacity and technical issues" , he said.

Pirelli will manufacture and lay the submarine system, which uses the most advanced DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) submarine optical transmission technology. Pirelli will also be responsible for the entire supply of materials, technology, installation services and commissioning, as well as integrated engineering and logistics activities. This new link is based on the " repeatered" technology, which is used for submarine optical transmissions over medium and long range (thousand of kilometers). The initially equipped capacity will be 20 Gigabit/second, upgradable in accordance with future traffic requirements.

The works shall be completed before the end of 2003 and the new broadband transmission capacity available will support the growth of internet based advanced services and data networking in the entire Region and will allow protection of the traffic transmitted over the other existing systems.

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The submarine cable will be manufactured at Italian plant in Arco Felice (Neaples), Pirelli's excellence center for submarine applications, while the optical equipment will be produced at Paderno Dugnano (Milan).