Prysmian warns on low-cost fibre use
November 30, 2021
By Colin Mann
Philippe Vanhille, Executive Vice President Telecom Division at energy and telecom cable systems specialist Prysmian Group, has drawn attention to the importance of ensuring that higher quality and safe optical fibres are used in building the European network infrastructure.
Speaking in a keynote panel about Europe’s digital infrastructure investment at the Tech and Politics Forum 2021, Vanhille presented 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 rush to implement recovery plans, we could end-up in building non-future proof infrastructures, or in spending more money than we should,” he warned. “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,” he asserted. “A quality, sustainable fibre network that can fulfil the requirements of future digital applications.”