international telecommunication company Southern Cross has kicked off.

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.

Southern Cross joined a host of other companies like Global Crossing, GlobeNet and Project Oxygen which have also set up the hub of their world operations on the Island.

All are racing to criss-cross the globe with their own cables which they can then subscribe telephone networks or Internet service providers to sign up for and pass the extra capability to consumers.

Southern Cross Cable Network of Bermuda is an independent entity owned by Telecom New Zealand, Cable & Wireless Optus and WorldCom.

The company awarded an $800 million supply contract to Alcatel and Fujitsu earlier this year.

Last week the Southern Cross cable landed at Clovelly Beach in Sydney, Australia -- marking the beginning of six months of cable laying.

Southern Cross marketing director Ross Pfeffer said: "This is an exciting milestone for Southern Cross.'' "The first of three cable laying ships is now in the water and the network is really coming to life. And this is just phase one.

"Phase two sees the full network completed with cable laid between California and Sydney via Hawaii and Fiji. Phase two is expected to be completed in August 2000.''