11/2/21 – Prysmian Group has been given an extension of its partnership with Openreach, the U.K.’s largest digital network business, with a new three-year contract.

A press release said that the Prysmian Group will provide innovation and expertise to support Openreach’s updated Full Fibre broadband build plan, which is vital to the U.K.’s government achieving its target of delivering “gigabit capable broadband” to 85% of the U.K. by 2025. “This is as Openreach follows an extended investment commitment by its parent, BT Group meaning that it’ll now build Full Fibre technology to a total of 25 million premises, including more than six million in the hardest-to-serve parts.”

Marcello Del Brenna, CEO Prysmian Group UK, said that the company has been a partner with Openreach for more than a half century. The latest contract reflects the positive impact our working relationship has had on the U.K.’s digital networks infrastructure. The extension of our working relationship comes at a time when Prysmian is investing in telecommunications innovation to ensure our digital network partners have the cutting-edge solutions. We have also taken great steps forward with our sustainability effort, eliminating paper inclusions from our products and replacing them with digital solutions.”

Openreach Managing Director for Fibre and Network Delivery Matthew Hemmings said that building a new broadband network across the U.K. is a hugely complex, nationwide engineering project. “It will help level-up the U.K. because the impact of Full Fibre broadband stretches from increased economic prosperity and international competitiveness to higher employment and environmental benefits by enabling more home working and fewer commuting trips.”

In the framework of this renewed partnership, Openreach has recently undertaken a live trial using the double overblow installation method developed by Prysmian Group. This Karona installation technique enables the installation of high-density optical fiber cable into pre-existing sub-ducted routes, already containing legacy cable. The trial took place at Stonehaven in Scotland. The cable used for the trial was Sirocco HD 144f with 5.0 mm diameter, and the innovative installation method allowed to overblow 600 mts of cable in less than 4 hours, increasing the capacity of the route to 432f. This installation technique was repeated at Bury St Edmunds, where a route of 730 mts was successfully overblown in less than four hours.