From London!
Monday November 16 2:43 PM ET
C&W In $1 Bln Push Into European Continent
LONDON (Reuters) - Cable and Wireless Plc, Britain's second biggest telecoms group, said it planned to spend $1.0 billion over five years to build a fully integrated voice, Internet and data network across continental Europe.
The company, which last week announced it was abandoning a global alliance with Telecom Italia partly because of a management crisis at the Italian company, said its network would link more than 40 major European cities in 13 countries. C&W, which plans to become a leading backbone Internet provider between Europe and the U.S., said it wanted to create a sophisticated global communications network following its $1.75 billion acquisition of the U.S. Internet business of America's MCI Communications in September.
''(The investment) will underpin an aggressive growth strategy across mainland Europe by offering carrier and corporate customers highly competitive and advanced communication services,'' the group said in a statement.
C&W said the investment, which is in addition to the group's intended $5.0 billion spend in Britain over the next three years, would help create 1,000 new jobs across Europe.
It includes winning all necessary facilities licenses and interconnect agreements and first stage delivery of a high- speed, sophisticated backbone network using Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) technology that links 10 cities in eight countries, mainly via supplier Hermes Europe Railtel.
It will also provide high-capacity fiber optic networks across Europe and provide Internet Protocop (IP) technology to more than 40 major business locations in 13 countries, C&W said. The group plans to start operations in Frankfurt and Duesseldorf this year to provide voice and data services in Germany.
''By providing significant backbone capability in Europe, we open our doors to a world-wide customer base requiring global end-to-end solutions and services including IP,'' said Stephen Pettit, executive director, global business.
''Only when IP connections can reach the highest standards of service and responsiveness first time, every time, will we unlock the real potential for the use of the technology. C&W can and will provide the standard and the benchmark to unlock that potential.
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