Prysmian Group cautions on use of low-cost optical fibre

EVP Philippe Vanhille: “We must ensure that the broadband infrastructure is built with the right ambition in terms of performance and security”

Prysmian Group, the world leader in the energy and telecom cable systems industry, is participating today in the Tech and Politics Forum 2021, the annual event for the European telecom industry, where it will draw once again attention to the importance of ensuring that higher quality and safe optical fibres are used in building the European network infrastructure. The Group’s Executive Vice President Telecom Division, Philippe Vanhille, will illustrate his vision for a successful future telecoms and digital sector, speaking at the flagship event on telecoms policy - this year in digital mode.

As society faces the ongoing threats of climate change, pandemics and economic inequalities, many are looking at digital technologies to provide solutions. To that end, the European Commission has begun distributing grants from the Recovery and Resilience Facility to member States that earmark 20% of funds for digitisation initiatives. In the meantime, the EU and US have renewed efforts to cooperate on technology.

In a keynote panel about Europe’s digital infrastructure investment challenge, Philippe Vanhille will present his views on the future model for broadband networks, emphasising the importance of both investors and policy-makers taking a long-term view. In the fast-changing digital sector, this means putting in play the best available technologies to build a long-lasting, high performance digital network, so as not to jeopardise the massive public funding that has been made available. Moreover, higher quality optical fibres represent the best solution to prevent and counter cyber security threats and safely transmit optical signals.

According to Vanhille: “In the rush to implement recovery plans, we could end-up in building non-future proof infrastructures, or in spending more money than we should. Despite the time pressure, we must ensure that the infrastructure, being a national asset, is built with the right ambition in terms of performance and security.” The recently imposed duties on imports of optical cables from China is an important sign of the EC’s awareness on this issue, but it is also important to focus on network’s technological core, optical fibres.

This can be guaranteed if governments dare prescribing some technical imperatives, abandoning, to some extent, the principle of technology neutrality, and shifting towards reducing the environmental impacts of infrastructure’s construction, incentivising the future proofness of solutions, and the high quality of components.

“We need the concept of deep fibre to become mainstream,” explains Philippe Vanhille, “a quality, sustainable fibre network that can fulfil the requirements of future digital applications.”