C&W invests $1bn in pan-European voice and data network

Cable & Wireless (C&W) today announced a five-year, $1bn dollar investment into an IP network providing voice, data and Internet access for corporate customers in 40 major European cities.

The expansion will initially buy C&W capacity on the Hermes Europe Railtel network to link ten key European business centres - Amsterdam, Zurich, Brussels, Luxembourg, Milan, Geneva, Barcelona, Madrid, Paris and Vienna. C&W will also set up operations centres in Frankfurt and Dusseldorf.

Over the next two years C&W will develop a fibre optic network sourced as dark-fibre from Global Crossing. According to the company the acquisition will give it a 7,2000km terrestrial network able to handle five million simultaneous phone calls.

Stephen Pettit, executive director, Global Business, said: "This turns C&W from having cornershops on A-roads, to having hypermarkets on motorways."

The expansion is expected to create 1,000 European jobs in addition to the work created by the planned $5bn investment into the UK over the next five years.

A spokesman for C&W said this is "an accelerated plan". He stressed that there are no partners involved because the company wanted to be in control of its own destiny.

The network will link to C&W's existing worldwide hubs, including those in US, UK and Asia Pacific region and is aimed at pan-European and multinational companies.

The expansion is part of the UK company's aggressive growth plan that has seen it recently spend $1.75bn on Internet services in the US - making it the second biggest carrier of Net traffic in the country. According to reports in the New York Times late last week, C&W is in talks with Qwest Communications to buy a further $300m worth of fibre optic network in the US.