70 million to be invested in new submarine cable

70 million to be invested in new submarine cable Telia continues to expand as a network wholesaler in the European market. On Friday, Telia's board of directors confirmed that the company plans to invest SEK 70 million in a submarine cable between Turku-Hanko-Helsinki that will be built during 2000. The cable will be the first link in the new Baltic Ring that Telia plans to have ready within two years. From the Finnish cities, the Baltic Ring will stretch over the Gulf of Finland to St Petersburg, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania to Gdansk in Poland. Construction will be carried out in stages and the new cables connected to those which Telia already has in the area, until a real ring has taken form. Some time ago, Telia decided to invest almost SEK 8 billion in increased network capacity in Europe and the USA- capacity that Telia can sell on the growing wholesale market for network commerce and the transmission of large volumes of telecom and data communication. Telia's customers are other network operators, mainly newcomers to the branch, but also established telecommunications companies. Telia is now building to become one of the foremost operators in this new market. "Thus far, our international efforts have been very successful, " says Marianne Nivert, manager of Telia Networks. "Customers are beating a path to our door, and sales are going so well that our investments have already paid off. As we have said earlier, our goal is a turnover of 15 billion within three years and we will reach that." At Friday's meeting of the board of directors, detailed plans were presented for the expansion of the Viking Network that links together London, Paris and Frankfurt-am-Main. Telia will complete the Frankfurt- Munich-Berlin-Hamburg-Düsseldorf-Frankfurt link in March of this year. In the USA, Telia now has a network that covers all the major urban areas in the country, as well as links in between. Unlike in Europe, Telia does not build its own networks in the USA; instead the company carries out barter transactions with other established operators, thereby getting access to network capacity. "Everything indicates that we'll be testing that method in Europe as well," says Marianne Nivert. "Sometimes bartering can be a cheaper and more quickly accessible alternative to building a network oneself, or leasing capacity." Further information to journalists, please contact: Anna-Carin Uddenberg, Press Officer, Telia Network Services +46 (0)8-713 28 42 E-post: anna-carin.a.uddenberg@telia.se ------------------------------------------------------------ Please visit http://www.bit.se for further information The following files are available for download: http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2000/01/24/20000124BIT00620/bit0001.doc http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2000/01/24/20000124BIT00620/bit0002.pdf