EoW November 2013

News Corporate

Production extended at spring facility in Bulgaria

Since it was opened in 2004, William Hughes’ production facility in Bulgaria has expanded four-fold. Located near Plovdiv, the 4,320m 2 custom-built factory employs 131 people and its scope and product capability continue to grow as new machinery and processes are added. William Hughes specialises in the manufacture of springs and bent wire assemblies. Production is split between its UK headquarters in Stalbridge, Dorset, and Bulgaria. Torsion springs are a particular area of expertise in Plovdiv and there is a strong local demand for this type of spring. As demand has grown, new machinery and processes have been installed in Bulgaria to help support the UK manufacturing facility. In 2012, four new wire-forming machines were installed, bringing the total in Bulgaria to 29, and robot-welding capacity has doubled.

New finishing processes have also been installed, enabling wire parts to be coated with Delta Tone and Delta Seal for corrosion protection. Max Hughes, managing director of William Hughes, said: “Establishing our first overseas production facility was an exciting experience. “We have seen a growing demand for our products from the developing local markets in Romania, Serbia and Turkey as well as the traditional markets in the UK, Poland, France and Germany. “We are delighted with the continuing success of the project. With our reinvestment programme, we look forward to the continuing growth of our facilities to the benefit of both the local economy and our overall UK capability.”

William Hughes Ltd – UK Website : www.wmhughes.co.uk

Jersey sub-sea cabling plans worth $75m

since these contracts were completed in February this year, Muckle LLP has also advised on a further two ancillary contracts supporting the cable link to France. Robert Langley, head of the construction and engineering team, said: “The work to manufacture the cable for the sub-sea connection is now underway at Prysmian’s facility in Naples, with a view to this new supply being connected next year and to be in service during 2015. “We appreciate the importance and significance of this development, not just for Jersey Electricity and the other organisations involved, but also for the Channel Islands. We look forward to working with the team at Jersey Electricity in the future.“ Muckle LLP – UK Website : www.muckle-llp.com

Newcastle, UK, law firm Muckle LLP has advised on a series of sub-sea engineering deals worth $75.5m. The firm has advised Jersey Electricity plc on a project that will provide Jersey with a third submarine power cable from France, enabling access to low carbon electricity. A contract with Prysmian Group will see 35km of high voltage alternate current submarine cable installed, and a separate contract with English subsidiary Prysmian Cables and Systems Ltd is for the supply and installation of 7km of 90,000-volt land cable. The cabling will connect the island with a substation at Periers, entering the sea at Pirou Plage on the French coast and coming ashore in Grouville Bay in Jersey. The work involved intense negotiation with Prysmian’s Italian legal team, and

Island connections

Alcatel-Lucent Telkom Indonesia are to develop a 3,000km optic fibre network infrastructure to connect the islands of Sulawesi, Maluku, and Papua in the Indonesian archipelago. This will open up new opportunities to improve the competitiveness of the region for economic and social development. Capable of supporting data speeds of 100G per second, the system will deliver an ultimate capacity of up to 16Tbit per second. Alcatel-Lucent – France Website : www.alcatel-lucent.com and

Broadband statistics update confirms increase in fibre adoption

Switzerland, Netherlands and Denmark top the OECD’s fixed broadband penetration ranking. The OECD’s average fixed broadband penetration is 26.3 lines per 100 inhabitants (327.2 million subscriptions). Wireless broadband increased by 13.8 per cent year-on-year, and reached a penetration of 62.75 lines per 100 inhabitants, up from 58.6 in June 2012. The total number of wireless broadband subscriptions in the OECD area is just above 780 million. Finland (106.5), Sweden (104.8), Australia (103.4) and Korea (103.0) have over one subscriber per capita. OECD – UK Website : www.oecd.org

New data on broadband subscriptions from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows a steady trend increase in fibre adoption, with the share of fibre subscriptions in fixed broadband increasing to 14.9 per cent (up to 48.7 million fibre broadband lines). Fibre grew by 12.7 per cent in 2012, four times as much as fixed broadband at 3.27 per cent. Luxembourg (324%), Austria (193.9%), United Kingdom (169.9%) and Switzerland (149.6%) experienced the strongest growth in fibre, while seven countries had growth rates above 100 per cent year-on-year and 11 countries over 50 per cent. Japan and Korea still maintain a strong OECD leadership in fibre broadband penetration, with over 60 per cent of fixed broadband lines based on fibre technology. The fibre shares in Estonia, Sweden and the Slovak Republic are over 30 per cent.

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November 2013