Calabria, Italy

The start and meaning of the project

Italy is carrying out a project for building high-speed communication networks in 20 cities, including Abruzzo, Basilicata and Calabria, called 'White Areas,' by 2023.

This project is worth €3.8 billion, and it is the largest high-speed communication network installation project in Italy. This project is led by Open Fiber, an Italian communication company. LS Cable & System got a chance to bid based on its supply of optical cables to ENEL, the parent company of Open Fiber, back in 2015 and 2016.

In 2017, LS Cable & System capitalized on its technological competitiveness to beat a local consortium and it was selected as the optical cable supplier. In this project, LS Cable & System won the contract for a large project without the help of a local company, and established itself as a major optical cable supplier.

Technological and delivery competitiveness

For this project, LS Cable & System focused on quality improvement. It applied thinner 200um Fibre and reduced the loose tube specifications. LS Cable & System could reduce the weight and thickness of the cable with a new design, and increase its production capacity. It could also reduce the customer's CAPEX (Capital expenditures).

Apart from technological competitiveness, product reliability was an important issue. To prove product safety, LS Cable & System tried to test the product in front of the customer. As the customer said it could not visit the production facilities in Korea, LS Cable & System directly headed to Italy with the product and test equipment.

"We decided to test the product test in Italy. For this project, we specially manufactured the portable test equipment. I remember that the test was conducted for four days in the customer's warehouse without an air-conditioner. The result was very good, and the customer was very satisfied with the test process."


Myeong Han-mi, Optical Communication Sales Team, LS Cable & System

In the early stages of the project, the customer, satisfied with LS Cable & System's technology and active responses, ordered more than 60% of the total required cables from LS Cable & System. During this project that lasted more than 3 years, LS Cable & System supplied cables without a single quality issue and won the customer's trust.

As the project progressed, delivery risks were taken care of as well. In the early stages of the project, all supply quantities were produced in the optical cable plant in Korea. Due to the physical distance, its delivery competitiveness could not but be poorer than that of its competitors with a production base in the EU. In 2019, LS Cable & System established the Polish subsidiary (LSCP), its first production base in Europe, and enhanced its competitiveness. Since then, some of the contract quantity is supplied from the Polish plant, and it is leading to the success of the project.

LSCP, Polish production subsidiary

Establishing itself as a major cable supplier

LS Cable & System successfully carried out the 'Open Fiber Ultra-broadband Optical Fibre Network Infrastructures' project, and as a result, it transformed itself from a company supplying cables to agencies in Europe to a major supplier that supplies products directly to customers. LS Cable & System is steadily expanding its business in France and other EU countries using this project as a stepping stone.