Verizon Communications to Spend $300 Million on Optical Cable Infrastructure

According to a recent announcement, Prysmian Group, a global energy and telecom cable systems industries provider, has been awarded a supply agreement from Verizon Communications to support the company’s U.S. network expansion around a next-generation fiber platform designed to speed the deployment of 5G services, while improving 4G LTE and other broadband capacity. The three-year contract is worth about $300 million and will include supply of more than 10.6 million miles of ribbon and loose tube cables.

“As a recognized global leading producer of optical cables, supporting the most advanced infrastructure of many of the world's telecom operators, Prysmian Group is proud to have been chosen by Verizon as partner for the development of such a strategic project,” said Hakan Ozmen, CEO, Prysmian Group North America.

Both Prysmian and Verizon said in the joint release that they feel strongly that demand and supply for next-generation passive optical networks will last well beyond 2020 as new technologies like 5G and the IoT become reality. Prysmian will make a significant investment through 2018 in its U.S.-based optical cable organization to support this project and the growth of major telecom carriers in North America. Prysmian manufactures optical fiber and cable for a broad range of applications, and has three telecom production sites in the United States, two for the production of optical cable and one for optical fiber. The company’s telecom division has qualified as an optical fiber, optical cable and connectivity solutions provider to Verizon for more than a decade.

“Prysmian Group's telecom division is an established optical cable and connectivity solutions provider to Verizon,” said Viju Menon, chief supply chain officer, Verizon. “This strategic supply agreement helps ensure we can ramp supply in order to expand our network capacity and speed 5G deployment.”