C&W profits rise as IP network gets underway

Cable & Wireless has posted its first profit since 2001 and named its first partner for its new all-IP network project.

For the year ended 31 March 2005, the telecoms company saw a profit of £302m compared to a loss of £237m in 2004.

The gains came from apparent cost savings as sales fell to £3.2bn from £3.7bn in the previous year, though the company says revenues were flat after accounting for the strengthening of the British pound over the last 12 months.

During the year, C&W completed its exit from the US at lower than expected cost and sold off its domestic Japanese business to be able to focus on its UK business.

The company also completed its acquisition of ISP Bulldog Communications and says it now has coverage in nearly a third of the UK broadband market. It's looking to Bulldog to provide the 'last mile' needed to offer end-to-end services.

C&W also announced its first supplier for its £190m Next Generation Network (NGN) project, which will create a single Internet Protocol (IP)-based network.

Tellabs will provide the metro ethernet portion of the project. The company's 8800 routers will be used to consolidate several new and existing networks into one unified network and enable migration to IP services.

C&W CEO Francesco Caio said the NGN will be a simpler network with lower costs for both traffic and maintenance, and will allow the company to roll out new functionality to customers.

The telco has also chosen Marconi - left out of BT's big network upgrade contract line up last month - to supply infrastructure for its access transmission network.