Andorra the First Country in the World to Provide Fibre to All Residents

Milan, December 22, 2008 – Prysmian Cables & Systems today announced that its current contract with Andorra Telecom will help the Principality of Andorra to become the first country in the world to provide a direct optical fibre link to all homes (FTTH) and businesses. The project, which utilizes Prysmian’s innovative VertiCasa™ cable system, began earlier this year and by the time of its completion in 2010 all 35,000 homes and business premises will be connected by fibre providing them with ultra high speed broadband services.

The project is based around Prysmian’s VertiCasa™ cable system, which is designed specifically to bring optical fibre directly to residents in all types of buildings, including high-rise and multiple dwelling units (MDU). VertiCasa™ was chosen for the project due to the easy fibre access and break-out it provides, reducing installation times and the need for skilled labour, therefore lowering overall costs. The system comprises a main riser cable of up to 48 fibres, which can be branched directly to individual subscribers on different floors of an MDU, without the need for splicing of the fibre within the riser of the building.

Mr Jaume Salvat, CEO of Andorra Telecom said, "We are extremely proud to be implementing such a project here in Andorra. It demonstrates the commitment of Andorra Telecom to providing the best possible information infrastructure across the country and with the support of Prysmian and the VertiCasa™ system we will soon have all our citizens provided with a direct fibre link.”

Director of Prysmian’s global telecoms cable and optical fibre business, Mr Giovanni B Scotti added, “We are delighted to be working with Andorra Telecom on this groundbreaking project. The VertiCasa™ system was designed with the MDU environment in mind and is proving to be ideally suited to the infrastructure requirements here in Andorra.”

With the current global trend towards FTTH Prysmian has recently been involved in a number of other projects around the world including Europe, Middle East, Russia and China amongst others, utilizing VertiCasa™ together with other proprietary products from its FTTH portfolio including Sirocco® and Quickdraw®.