Bermuda-based international telecommunications firm Southern Cross Cable Network yesterday announced new capacity sales of $553 million.

The sales resulted from the company's second Data Gathering Meeting, which was held in August, and bring the company's total capacity sales to $1.2 billion.

The first Data Gathering Meeting in November, 1997, saw the company secure initial pre-sales of $642 million.

Southern Cross Chief Executive Officer Baldo Sutich said: "This is a significant milestone for the project and for the company. Sales during the construction phase are traditionally low, but we have now covered our network construction costs and guaranteed the financial success of the project.'' Southern Cross is building a network linking the South Pacific with North America and in February it set up its international headquarters in Bermuda.

The company plans to build a submarine fibre optic cable network linking Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and the US West Coast.

The cable is purpose-built for the Internet and has enough capacity to carry almost 1.5 million simultaneous telephone conversations or a mix of voice, data and video traffic. The company introduced a new marketing package for the August meeting which included new products and reductions in bandwidth prices.

This move was justified by the boost in capacity and the project's financial success, argued Southern Cross' Vice President for Marketing and sales Andrew Riddle.

He said: "Our bold move has really paid off. The response from customers was truly outstanding.

"Our $553 million in sales came from a combination of new and existing customers, bringing our total customer base to 34.

"It was always our aim to build a large and diverse customer base,'' he continued, "and we have succeeded in meeting this objective.

"Southern Cross has had great support from both global and regional telecommunication companies and from Internet Service Providers.'' The company is in strong demand for connections between Australasia and the US and for US carriers looking to extend their networks to the South Pacific.

Mr. Riddle noted: "Our success is due to the fact that we are able to offer large amounts of protected capacity on a network which takes the direct route between Australasia and North America. "This is what customers want and we have shown we can deliver.'' The company continues to make fast work of its journey across the Pacific.

Sydney to Auckland and Auckland to Hawaii links are already completed and the cable ship Vectors is in the process of laying the first 3,000 kilometres of the 4,200 kilometre link between Hawaii and California.

This is the final segment of Phase One of the network which is expected to be ready for service in June, 2000.

Three ships will begin laying Phase Two of the network in January. The network's second phase has a ready for service date of October, 2000.