Over 30 telecommunications companies, including many large firms in Europe and the US, signed to build a $155m fibre optic cable linking Italy, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine: the move was announced by Stet SpA, which said the cable will be 2,200 miles long and will be able to transmit more than 50,000 telephone conversations simultaneously, starting from the Sicilian capital of Palermo, and extending to Istanbul and into the Black Sea before branching to Novorossisk and on to Moscow, with the other branch going to Odessa in the Ukraine, and Kiev; it should be ready in early 1996; other co-owners will include British Telecommunications Plc, Deutsche Bundespost Telecom, France Telecom, Telefonica de Espana SA and Italcable SpA, plus all the Big Three US long-distance carriers.
