Confusion reigns over Cable & Wireless Plc’s next step in international telephony and telecommunications services, but the most likely partner seem to be the Unisource NV alliance with AT&T Corp rather than the Global One alliance of Sprint Corp, France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom AG. The key is Germany, where Cable & Wireless is allied with Veba AG in Vebacom AG, and Unisource and AT&T have 15% each of the new phone company being formed by Mannesmann AG, which has bought 49.8% of Deutsche Bahn AG’s DBKom railway telecommunications service and infrastructure company. The secret here is that Veba has already agreed rights to lay its own cables along Deutsche Bahn railway tracks, has held talks with Mannesmann in the past, and says it is ready to reopen negotiations. As for the new, unnamed Mannesmann-led company, AirTouch Communications Corp may also invest in it, Deutsche Bahn chairman Heinz Drr told the Wall Street Journal Saturday. The other name being bandied about as a strategic international partner for Cable & Wireless Plc is Nynex Corp, so why does that make sense? Nynex’s future direction is somewhat up in the air pending its acquisition by Bell Atlantic Corp, but assuming that its international strategy remains substantially unchanged, it is to be an investor in the UK Cable & Wireless Communications Plc cable television and telephony joint venture, it wanted to hold the US end of Cable & Wireless’s PTAT-1 transatlantic fiber cable until it was barred by Judge Harold Greene (Sprint Corp eventually won the honor), and, most interestingly, it is the initiator and lead investor in the FLAG Fiber Optic Link Around the Globe, which complements Cable & Wireless’s existing global highway quite nicely. Apart from Veba AG, Sprint Corp and Nynex Corp, Cable & Wireless Plc’s most important international allies are US West Inc, with 50% of the Mercury One-2-One Personal Communications Network, and BCE Inc, with 20% of Mercury Communications Ltd.
