France: Prysmian presents biggest European optical fibre plant

Prysmian Group, world leader in the energy and telecoms cable industry, presented its renewed optical fibre production facility in Douvrin, France, following the completion of an important investment, in a meeting with Antoines Darodes, Director of the French national organization Agence du Numérique - Mission Très Haut Débit.

With a total plant area of 155,000 m² and 348 employees, the Douvrin facility is the biggest European plant for the fibre optic production and one of the 11 Prysmian plants in France. Prysmian Group, the number one producer of optical fibre in Europe (and, in particular, in France), has the ability to work with all existing manufacturing processes, including its proprietary plasma vapour deposition technologies.

Every year this plant produces 25 Mkm of fibre preforms, part of which is drawn into fibre on site and the rest is exported to be drawn elsewhere. The Group has recently completed its investment of approximately €15m in the plant to increase its production capacity in order to match the growing market demand. Part of these investments have been co-funded by the French Government and local institutions, in a joint effort to increase Europe’s competitiveness that results from investment in quality technologies.

As one department of “Agence du Numérique”, “Mission Très Haut Débit” was established by the French Government in December 2012 and was primarily responsible for defining the implementation modalities of full coverage of the territory at very high speed. This led to the creation of “Plan France Très Haut Débit” in spring 2013 which Mission Très Haut Débit managed in connection with the other various administrations involved in its implementation. Among its functions, the association currently aims at providing economic, technical and operational support to local authorities, and helps local governments in the development and implementation of coding conventions and monitoring deployments.

“We are delighted that Mr. Darodes accepted our invitation to visit our renewed plant” said Philippe Vanhille, Executive Vice President, Telecom at Prysmian Group “His visit clearly demonstrates how the entire supply chain is important for Agence du Numérique- Mission THD, from the very beginning (production of preforms and fibre) to the installation of high quality, very high bit rate optical networks in relation with local governments and telecom operators. The visit confirms the role of Prysmian Group as an active player in the debate on broadband deployment in Europe, while maintaining its commitment to innovation and remaining a leader in the optical fibre sector worldwide”.