ON DISPLAY ITS LATEST INNOVATIONS FOR FIBRE-TO-THE-HOME NETWORKS

CEO BATTISTA: “FIBRE NETWORKS ARE KEY FOR THE REVAMPING OF EU ECONOMY”

Milan, February 18th, 2013 – Prysmian Group, world leader in the energy and telecom cables and systems industry, is to play a major role as Gold Sponsor at this week’s FTTH Council Europe Conference, the world’s largest Fibre to the Home event (London, ExCel Exhibition Centre -February 19-21). Created by the merger of Prysmian and Draka, Prysmian Group has a wealth of experience across the entire Telecoms sector and will showcase its wide range of products for the FTTH market.

Prysmian Group CEO Valerio Battista will participate in the CEO Panel discussion on Thursday 21 February where he will join other industry leaders in discussing the hot topics of FTTH roll-out and presenting a strategic point of view on future developments in the European FTTH market. His presentation will focus on the advantages of investing in an FTTH network in the current European environment, as a driving force to sustainable economic growth.

“FTTH is an important and growing part of our business,” said Phil Edwards, Executive Vice-President Telecom Business at Prysmian Group. “This event is our opportunity to give our continued support to the FTTH Council in encouraging the wider adoption of this technology which will bring faster broadband speeds, better quality and greater network reliability to homes and businesses across the continent.”

The FTTH Conference is an ideal venue for the Telecoms sector of Prysmian Group to present its innovative solutions for the FTTH markets. The company will be showing its latest range of products on its booth, G13. The display will be focused around Prysmian Group’s theme “From the Biggest Cities to the Smallest Communities” and will emphasize the company’s leadership in innovation that addresses new and developing needs of FTTH in less densely populated areas.

Products on display will include Prysmian’s RetractaNetXS end-to-end integrated solution for cost-effective FTTH networks. RetractaNetXS is a complete solution that significantly reduces the cost of home connection of FTTH deployments. It is a fast, flexible, user-friendly cable system that can be installed both underground and overhead, and which allows significant reductions in installation costs. Alessandro Pirri, Director Connectivity and FTTH at Prysmian Group, will highlight this solution in his presentation on Wednesday 20th February. Mr Pirri will talk on the subject of innovative solutions for FTTH deployments in rural, low population density locations, highlighting the importance of developing solutions with lower installation costs as operators and service providers turn their attention to these environments.

In addition Prysmian will be highlighting a recent project in the Netherlands where the cost of FTTH installation in suburban and rural homes was brought down by using the existing sewer system. Using this solution avoids the high costs associated with digging and is also significantly faster than traditional direct buried methods. Prysmian’s BendBrightXS - bend insensitive – fibre was used throughout this project within an innovative cable construction designed to withstand the harsh conditions present in the sewer system. The Prysmian’s solution utilised will be showcased on the stand.

The Telecom Solutions business operates in the telecommunications sector with a wide range of cable and system solutions addressing the high bandwidth provision needs of major network operators and service providers. The portfolio covers all areas of the market – including long distance, submarine and metro systems – although the area of greatest activity at present is within the ‘last mile’ access networks for which Prysmian has developed the xsNet suite of products and systems which will be on show on the company’s booth and which is also highly suitable for rural deployments of FTTx.

xsNet addresses the passive access network and provides tailor-made solutions for all parts of the FTTx network – indoor, outside and POP applications. The building blocks of xsNet include a number of familiar products which have already proven themselves to be highly reliable solutions. These include SiroccoXS (Blown fibre), VertiCasaXS (MDU cabling system) and VerTVXS (optical satellite solution) along with blown cable families including JetNetXS and EaseNetXS.

Prysmian Group will be present at booth G13 with a team of commercial and technical experts available to discuss all aspects of the products and their applications.