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Interview With Prysmian Group's Edgar Aker
Published Dec 22, 2011
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Q. Please give us a brief about your company.
Prysmian Group is proud to be the number one fiber and cable manufacturer in the world. The Prysmian Group was formed by the joining Prysmian (former Pirelli Cables) and Draka. Prysmian made a successful bid on Draka shares in the beginning of February 2011 and now we are the a new company called: Prysmian Group. We are active in 50 countries and 98 plants around the globe, employing 22,000 people with a total – consolidated sales of 7 Billion Euros sales in 2010. Secondly the focus of the company is on innovation, with 22 R&D centres to support this strategy.
Q. What are your company’s solutions for FTTH Networks? Which vertical markets do you serve?
We are an energy and telecommunication cable manufacturer; therefore we are a player in the passive layer of a telecoms network, you could say: “we supply the bits and pieces to build a FTTH network”. For us it is important to be flexible to the demands of the customers, and we have different cabling solutions. Prysmian Group believes that there’s no one solution that will fits all.
Especially in the Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) market, we are building on the competency of a new revolutionary fiber - the bend insensitive fiber BendBrightXS. This bare fiber can bend over 7.5 mm, this fibre innovation enables our customers to deploy fiber very closely to the home or even in the home if you like. We build innovative cables and cabling solutions (cables plus connectivity), for example our indoor solutions are designed for FTTH inside the appartment building, which are extremely useful in urban FTTH deployments.
Also have for outside plant cabling solutions (the network from exchange to the building), direct buried, blowable cable and ducting solutions or Aerial cablings systems, any network that you want to connect from one point to the other we can help. A very nice example of a creative solution here, is the sewer system that we built in the city of Paris (France). This is a very dirty environment, but we were able to developed a new rat and rodent proof cable with quick installation and fibre branch-off to the buildings. So any challenge, we love to figure out a solution for it.
Q. In your experience, is the application of triple play a sign that voice, data and video convergence will be the trend on a large scale? What are the future prospects of triple play?
Yes, Prysmian Group - as a company truly believe that; although depending on the situation, we see at trend to go for a much more fiber rich future. To be able to give triple- or even quad-triple play services you need to have a synchronise network: meaning synchronise up- and download stream bit rates for seemless VOIP or VPN services. For instance in the Middle-East and North-Africa region there are relatively more green fields situations. Looking at costs we always give the advice that if you’re going to dig in Greenfield situation, please install a full fiber connection because it’s future proof.
Q. What kind of network infrastructure do you recommend to support triple play and/or growing data needs?
The choice of infrastructure topology is up to the network operator, whatever the choice Prysmian Group is there to help the customer to build the network with our innovative fibre, cable and connectivity products. Prysmian and Draka have been in the cabling business for more than 100 years. We are able to supply any kind of cable needed, we have been very successfully supplying xDSL copper types of cable for decades. However I believe that if you want your network to be fully future proof, you need to go for fiber.
Q. Do you think fiber might replace copper for networks generally?
To me it’s a given: but I also believe the transition will move in different situations at different paces and in steps. For instance, mainly though Western Europe the biggest issue is our legacy copper telecom network. To replace this with fibre, it ’s going to take time, money and effort. Only if the business case is healthy and they see a competitive edge operators will start replacing the copper with fibre, and Prysmian Group can certainly help.
Q. How do you differentiate yourself from your competitors?
Prysmian Group a company with a strong innovation focus. We bring the best of two worlds: Draka is developing and manufacturing the bare optical fiber, Draka and Prysmian both have extensive knowledge on cable making, and Prysmian is also bringing a strong competence in passive connectivity products to the table. With this combination we are able to give customers a full passive network.
The fun part of it is the innovations that we have; for example in fiber this enables us to bring this new BendBrightXS (bend insensitive fibre) to the market, now we have implemented it in new cable designs that enable new installation methods. Introducing connectivity products means we can utilize that into a system: cabling solutions including all frames, racks, closures, indoor boxes, patch cords, pigtails and splitters.
So we can tailor a cabling solution with all our innovations through the whole chain. I think that’s what really differentiates us and it’s also fun to do.
About Edgar Aker
Edgar is responsible for global Business Development and Strategy Telecommunications in the Prysmian Group – a company created by the merger of Draka and Prysmian. Previously he was Marketing Director of Draka’s EMEA Communications division, responsible for the FTTx connectivity business of Draka. He reports to Prysmian Group Telecom Solutions Vice-President Gert Hoefman.
With Draka for more than a decade, Edgar has been involved in broadband initiatives within the company since the beginning. He built up the Broadband & FTTx business unit and strategically realigned the organization to FTTx global trends. He is currently the Prysmian representative within the FTTH Council Europe and is a member of the Board of Directors.
Edgar has a Master of Business Science (MScBA) degree from Groningen University, with an engineering background as a Bachelor (BSc) in Technical Business Sciences. In addition, he has a Bachelor of Sciences degree (BSc) in Electro Technical Engineeering from the Technical University in Alkmaar, The Netherlands.
Posted by VMD - [Virtual Marketing Department]
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