Cable & Wireless Plc says it intends to bring all its cellular telephone operations around the world into a single entity under centralised management, with a view to possible eventual flotation of the new entity. Cable & Wireless told Dow Jones & Co that the mobile telephone unit will be managed in London by Stephen Pettit, who currently is in charge of mobile communications and Cable & Wireless’s European operations. As well as 50% of Mercury One-2-One, it has a large cellular operation in Hong Kong, and interests cellular operators in about 24 countries, including several in the Caribbean, as well as Australia, Japan, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Pakistan and Yemen. In central and eastern Europe it has operations in Bulgaria and Latvia, and it is a member of the Bouygues SA consortium building the third cellular network in France.Separately, it says that Cable & Wireless Inc will invest $120m in its US long-distance network in the next four years to keep the level of network intelligence ahead of the competition. It will start by installing new high-capacity switches in the spring supporting the Advanced Intelligent Network standard.
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