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Pirelli's New Flexible Tubes Enhance Handling Ease Of Fiber Optic Cable

5 June 1998

Pirelli's New Flexible Tubes Enhance Handling Ease Of Fiber Optic Cable

    LEXINGTON, S.C., June 5 -- Pirelli Cables and Systems North
America today announced the introduction of a new, highly flexible buffer tube
material that greatly enhances the handling ease of fiber optic cable, reduces
installation time and consequently provides cost savings to the customer.
    John Halferty, product manager at Pirelli, said the feedback Pirelli has
received from the field has been overwhelmingly positive. "We put a lot of
faith in the feedback we get from the people who actually do the hands-on
installation of our cable," Halferty said. "They tell us Pirelli makes the
most craft-friendly tubes they have used to date and they wouldn't want
anything else."
    Installation technicians have indicated that the buffer tube material's
lack of memory allows them to route the tubes all the way into splice
closures. The tubes stay where they are placed and don't spring back. Since
transition tubes are eliminated in the splice closures, this saves the
technicians time during installation.
    Pirelli has subjected its new flexible buffer tubes, which are used in
fiber optic cable construction to house and protect the optical fibers, to
more extensive testing than its governing specifications call for. The tubes
were tested for kinks and cracks over temperature extremes, submitted to
cyclic flexing and slit at extreme temperatures, to determine their
suitability and durability. The results of these tests have shown that the
flexible buffer tubes offer significant advantages in handling and
functionality.
    "Our internal quality standards are very high," Halferty said. "We are
extremely excited about the durability and performance of Pirelli's flexible
tubes." Pirelli's fiber optic cable is manufactured under a quality system
registered to the international ISO 9001 standard and CSQP(SM) registered.
The new buffer tube material is available with the following cable designs:
all-dielectric; single armor/single jacket; single armor/double jacket, and
double armor. Pirelli cable designs incorporating the new buffer tube material
also include KleenCore(TM) or MarineCore(TM) technology. This technology
utilizes water blocking materials that are easily and quickly removed,
eliminating the task of cleaning flooding compound from the buffer tubes.
Fiber counts range from 2 through 288.
    Pirelli Cables and Systems North America is headquartered in Columbia,
S.C. With facilities in Lexington and Abbeville, S.C., Colusa, Calif., Surrey,
British Columbia, St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, and Prescott, Ontario, it
provides fiber optic cable and photonics equipment for the communications
industry and energy transmission and distribution cable for the utility and
commercial building industries.
    Pirelli Cables and Systems is a global manufacturer of communications and
power cables and systems. With 15,000 employees, 51 plants, research and
development centers in Italy, the United States, France, Canada, Great Britain
and Brazil, and total sales of more than $3.5 billion, Pirelli ranks among the
world leaders. The company is increasingly focusing its R&D and manufacturing
resources and competencies on leading edge technologies, based on optical
fibers and photonics for communications networks and superconductivity for
power transmission.