Infigate to select Polish firm for fiber-optic cable installation
By : Roseanne Gerin
German telecommunications company Infigate will select a local firm from a shortlist of five companies in early April to install 1,200 kilometers of fiber-optic cable in Poland as part of its regional data transmission network, Christoph Michalak, the firm's country manager for Poland, said last week.
As part of Infigate's plans to build two fiber-optic rings for international data transmission in Central Europe by mid-2002, the firm plans to spend DM 60 million-DM 80 million on constructing the ground links for its Warsaw-Berlin and Warsaw-Prague cable stretches. The company also intends to build a Warsaw-based telehouse, which is a 6,000-square meter warehouse for its clients to store or install Internet routers, switches and other telecom equipment.
Michalak declined to name the shortlisted firms, but said in general that companies such as oil, gas and energy concerns, which have land rights, could install ducts to house the fiber-optic cables in Poland.
Owned by Deutsche Bank Industrial Holdings, a subsidiary of Germany's Deutsche Bank, the year-old company will also finalize one of three contracts for the location of its Warsaw telehouse within the next two weeks, Michalak said. He expects the telehouse to be built by early September.
Infigate's clients in Poland would include international data transmission carriers and corporate customers with huge telecom networks, such as banks and insurance companies, Michalak said. The firm's fiber-optic lines would offer a maximum transmission speed of 155 megabits per second, or enough capacity to provide telephone connections for 350 million Europeans at one time, he said.
