MILAN -- Pirelli Telecom Cables & Systems has established an agreement with Panduit Ltd. to include its Sirocco Blown Fibre System in their structured cabling solutions. Italy will be the first market to benefit from the introduction of the system when it is officially launched at "Cabling" in Milan on 25 - 26 February 2003.The Sirocco blown fibre system is a flexible fibre-delivery solution that allows much of the cost of fibre to be deferred (avoiding dark "just-in-case" fibre), while ensuring the potential for migration from copper to fibre (composite designs) or from standard to enhanced fibres for higher capacity systems (multimode, singlemode, OM3 and FineLight). The solution is ideal in areas such as finance and education where flexibility and future network expansion are essential.Optical fibre units of 2, 4, 8 or 12 fibres can be blown into tubing with 1, 2, 4, 7, 12, 19 or 24 sub-units. There is a full range of Blown Fibre tubing (indoor, duct and direct burial options), accessories (plug-in connectors) and fibre management products. The Sirocco system includes the blowing equipment and training of staff to install the products and provide an end to end solution.Commenting on the joint venture, Panduit’s VP of Business Development, Steve Luczkiw, said, "Pirelli’s Sirocco system components perfectly complement Panduit’s copper and fibre range. Blown fibre gives our customers the opportunity to meet today’s requirements cost effectively while providing a clear upgrade path for any future needs."In a separate release:

Pirelli Telecom Cables & Systems has appointed Wood Communications as a distributor for the DeskWave range of optical data cables in Eire.Overseas market development manager at Pirelli UK, Adrian Austin, complemented Pirelli’s new partner; "the strategic appointment of Wood Communications is a clear reflection of Pirelli’s commitment to fully service and support the needs of the Irish market. The strengths of Wood Communications as a pro-active solutions provider, with a strong local presence and an enthusiasm to succeed are well matched to Pirelli’s ability to engineer and deliver innovative communication solutions. We were impressed with the team in Woods, their knowledge of the market and drive to build up the business. We decided that all of this expertise would serve us well in building up the position we wanted in the Irish market for our optical data cables."The Pirelli DeskWave products are primarily intended for LANs and other premise applications such as offices, banks, factories, hospitals, university campuses and defence establishments. Cables are available for use indoors or for external networks or "universal" cables suitable for connections involving indoor and outdoor sections, avoiding splicing at building entry. The standard ranges go from 1 to 48-fibres for these environments with a range of alternative fibre types. Special designs can be supplied to meet higher fibre count applications or composite cables with copper and optical elements or more than one fibre type for future proofing.Pirelli Cables and Systems