Prysmian has partnered with Dow to advance the production of its Sirocco® microduct cables, reflecting the company’s fiber growth strategy.
Prysmian will leverage Dow's AXELERON™ Telecom Cable Compound as part of the agreement.
AXELERON™ 6321 BK Telecom Cable Compound opens in a new tab is a black, UV-stabilized HDPE cable jacket material designed for power and telecom applications, such as Prysmian’s Sirocco™ Microduct Cables.
This jacket is laser printable, has a low coefficient of friction (COF), and has extremely low shrinkage. It enables extremely high fiber counts in smaller diameter cables and increases cable installation efficiency. It also offers excellent toughness, weather resistance, and high-speed extrusion processing.
Srinivas Siripurapu, Chief Innovation and R&D Officer for Prysmian, said that the work it is doing with Dow allows it to respond more effectively to the need for optimized optical fibers and cable materials to install more optical fibers in limited spaces.
"This collaboration has netted essential breakthroughs in our Sirocco® cable technology, increasing fiber density with a smaller cable diameter, resulting in lower installation costs and less raw material usage,” he said. “Importantly, it also significantly reduces our environmental footprint, demonstrating our commitment to sustainability."
Focus on expansion
In response to the growing need for Sirocco® cables in the U.S., Prysmian has made investments across its North American footprint, including a $30 million investment in its factory in Jackson, Tennessee.
The investments have retooled the facility from legacy copper to fiber optic cable production. This investment adds to an existing $85 million investment in optical cable capacity in North America, bringing the total to $115 million.
Prysmian’s Jackson facility, which previously produced copper cables, will be converted into a new fiber cable manufacturing plant. This conversion is part of a broader trend as the market shifts from legacy copper infrastructure to fiber.
The company’s investment also aligns with the Biden-Harris Administration's "Internet for All" initiative and the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, which requires Made-in-America materials and products for federally funded infrastructure projects.
Likewise, a multi-year, $50 million modernization project at Prysmian's Claremont fiber facility has enhanced process capabilities, systems, and technologies to support future growth.
A partnership approach
A big part of Prysmian’s approach is to create an ever-growing array of partners with specialties in areas that complement its focus.
DOW is one of many partners Prysmian is working with to achieve its growth mission.
In March, Prysmian advanced its status in the burgeoning hollow core fiber (HCF) market via a partnership with Relativity Networks, volume production in demand by operators of the data centers required to meet the growing needs of AI.
Relativity Networks HCF technology and Prysmian's fiber cables are addressing that problem by enabling cloud-computing hyperscalers to locate data centers closer to power sources, whether conventional electric utilities or green-energy providers.
The company's HCF solutions can address two main applications for data centers: data center interconnection and intra-data centers.
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Sean Buckley
Sean is responsible for establishing and executing the editorial strategies of Lightwave and Broadband Technology Report across their websites, email newsletters, events, and other information products.