Pirelli Cables and Systems North America announced that construction of its new Premises fiber optic cable facility is nearing completion, with manufacturing lines being installed and production scheduled to begin in the second quarter of this year.
Pirelli initially announced the construction of the new facility in Lexington County, S.C., in late summer of 2000. Growth of Pirelli's Premises fiber optic cable products have created a need for additional capacity before the facility is on-line. Pirelli's Premises fiber optic cables currently are produced at the company's existing manufacturing facility in Lexington, which will be devoted exclusively to Outside Plant cable products when the new facility goes on-line.
Raymond L. Robinson, president and CEO of Pirelli Cables and Systems North America, attributed a significant portion of the increased demand to Pirelli's strategic relationship with Tyco Electronics, an established provider in the Premises cabling market. Tyco Electronics Corporation, a division of Tyco International Ltd., is the North American sales representative for Pirelli's tight-buffered Premises cable products into the distribution market.
The AMP NETCONNECT solution offered by Tyco Electronics features AMP/Pirelli cable. Pirelli's Premises cables offer computer manufacturers, network designers, network installers and connectivity OEMs a single source for cable products to meet virtually any LAN or premises application.
Pirelli's Premises cabling products include interconnect cables for connectorized use in jumpers and pigtails as well as work area and horizontal applications; distribution cables for horizontal and building backbone applications; and CampusLink and FirstLink indoor/outdoor cables for building backbone and campus backbone applications. Pirelli's Premises cables' small diameters allow a bend radius that supports installation in confined areas for fiber to the desk applications, while their high-quality tight buffering allows them to be stripped easily without sacrificing optical performance.
Pirelli Cable and Systems North America also introduced its Premises Ribbon Distribution Cables. Developed for a fiber cable sector, Pirelli's new Premises Ribbon Distribution Cables provide a flexible, easy-to-install solution that enables the transition of high-fiber-count OSP (outside plant) ribbon cable from the splice vault into the communications center.
The cables' innovative designs allow a customer to save time and money during installation by eliminating the challenges previously associated with mass fusion splicing and connectorization with (MT) ribbon connectors. Additionally, the new cables permit a higher port density within the customer's communication center, thus increasing carrying capacity. The fibers within the Premises Ribbon Distribution Cables can also be "broken out" for connection to standard legacy connectors.
Premises Ribbon Distribution Cables exceed ICEA-596 and Telcordia GR-409 requirements for indoor cables and are NEC rated to meet the requirements of local and national building codes.
Pirelli also announced the introduction of Advanced FreeLight fiber, the latest in a line of technologically advanced Non Zero Dispersion Optical fibers. Specifically designed for long-distance, high-bit-rate applications, Advanced FreeLight has a fiber PMD (Polarization Mode Dispersion) specification value reduced by 50 percent.
Through continuous improvement in the manufacturing process and fiber geometry, Pirelli has tightened the PMD specification by 50 percent to 0.1 ps/sqrt(km), although FreeLight fiber has already been providing customers a PMD value within the new standards set by Advanced FreeLight fiber.
PMD is recognized as an important limiting factor in 40 Gbit/s long-distance transmission systems. A signal effectively travels along an optical fiber in two perpendicular modes. Small asymmetries in the fiber geometry can cause one mode to travel faster than the other, effectively causing a spreading of the signal. This dispersion can clearly limit the reach of a network, with a greater impact as the bit rate increases.
By halving the PMD specification value, Advanced FreeLight fiber allows four times the reach. Pirelli's focus on bringing solutions that achieve transmission rates of 40 Gbit/s and beyond will allow the telecommunication market to continue evolving at the speed of light. As with any improvement offered by Pirelli, operators save money by spending less on regenerating equipment.
About Pirelli Cables and Systems:
Pirelli Cables and Systems North America provides fiber optic cable for the communications industry and energy transmission and distribution cable for the utility and commercial building industries. Pirelli Cables and Systems is a global manufacturer of communications and power cables and systems. The company is increasingly focusing its R&D and manufacturing resources and competencies on leading-edge technologies, based on optical fibers for communications networks and superconductivity for power transmission. For more information, visit www.pirelli.com.