Pirelli Communications Cables and Systems and PANDUIT combine strengths in global agreement

March 30, 2004 Lexington, SC--Pirelli Communications Cables and Systems has signed a global marketing agreement with PANDUIT, a global supplier of data communications and electrical products.

The agreement solidifies Pirelli as a member of the PANDUIT Architecture for Converged Technologies(PACTTM) program. The PACTTM program brings together a community of best-in-class partners who share a vision; to offer business and application focused solutions, based on a framework of open architecture, which are designed and pre-tested specifically to provide optimum support for critical network applications.

"Pirelli and PANDUIT are a strong strategic fit," said Kevin E. Riddett, president and chief executive officer of Pirelli, North America, Inc. "We are global companies and are leaders in our markets. We share a primary focus on being customer advocates while manufacturing high quality products. In addition to our innovative line of smart gateways and tunable lasers, Pirelli offers an extensive product portfolio of optical cabling solutions to complement the PANDUIT solution set, which is the most comprehensive in the industry."

Ron Partridge, PANDUIT vice president, Global Sales and Marketing, added, " The agreement is strategically important because it gives Pirelli greater leverage in the enterprise and structured cabling markets, where PANDUIT is well-established, and strengthens PANDUIT opportunities in the global service provider and fiber-to-the-premises markets, where Pirelli is well established."

A key asset in the agreement is Pirelli's Sirocco Blown Fiber System, which is ideally suited to local area networks and FTTP applications. The Sirocco system enables optical fibers to be deployed on demand, thereby significantly reducing initial capital spending. Its advantages include reduced life-cycle costs and the ability to deploy capacity on demand, two primary issues for communications service providers and network managers. Pirelli holds a license from BT of the U.K. to manufacture and install Sirocco systems worldwide.