EoW September 2010

Feature

Photo courtesy of ROBLON A/S

Fibre optic – machinery & equipment

A shift in emphasis from development and manufacture to installation and deployment takes place with any breakthrough product at the top of its technology. Nowhere is this more striking than in the field of fibre optics. Consider the first element in the fibre manufacturing process: a preform. Tens of kilometres of optical fibre will be pulled from this cylinder, little larger than a violin case. Now consider the going live, on 1 st July, of the 4,350-mile Main One fibre optic cable running from Portugal to Nigeria and Ghana, with branches under construction to Morocco, the Canary Islands, Senegal and Ivory Coast. Before this could happen the cable had to be laid, and its connectivity assured at mid-ocean depths. Despite the tremendous differential in scale, the advance from product to application here may seem inevitable – but not to the suppliers reviewed in this section. They know that, in fact, it was won only with the use of machinery and equipment designed, customised and adapted to the changing requirements of their vital and progressive industry.

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EuroWire – September 2010