The general manager of Cable and Wireless is concerned about the arrival of competitors in Bermuda's telecommunications arena even before the playing field is level.

Everyone must benefit from the introduction of competitiveness, warned John Tibbles yesterday.

He said he was convinced that as long as his company was bound by regulations dating back to the era when it enjoyed a monopoly then it would not benefit from any changes and neither would its customers.

This was why Cable and Wireless was supposed to receive three years notice before the Island went competitive.

"We have a lot of concerns about the implementation of competition and these can only be properly answered when there are detailed regulations actually published and none of these exist today,'' he said.

"We do have plans for rate reductions and new products but one of our great concerns about competition is the way in which it will be regulated.'' Cable and Wireless had met and exceeded its obligations but some of these were no longer economically viable in the new era.

"We took those responsibilities very seriously and we invested large amounts of money to meet them.'' It was bound to uphold them under an Act of Parliament which Government seemed to have brushed aside.

"We do believe that key provisions of our license have not been fully taken into account.

"We are actively considering the options of responding and what form that response will take.

"It's a fairly serious step when governments change their minds about the interpretation of agreements they have made with major companies.'' The obligations Cable and Wireless are bound to include provision of costly out-of-date services such as telex and telegrams and numerous back-up systems which ensured "Bermuda was never cut off from the outside world,'' he continued.

It also operated equipment here which would be cheaper for it to operate overseas and spent a lot of money training Bermudians.

Now 120 of its 123 staff -- or 98 percent -- are local, said Mr. Tibbles.

And a new role had to be defined for the company which gave realistic expectations of a profitable future for it and these employees.

"Anyone in business wants to know what framework they are operating within...so everybody understands the rules of the game,'' said Mr.

Tibbles.

However in Bermuda there "are just very loose proposals'' in place, he said.

It was important to realise, he continued, that "competition is a means to an end not the end in itself.

"The end in itself is that Bermuda has telecommunications that provide the right services, that provide quality and reliability and provide price to go out and compete for international businesses -- that's the goal.

"Essentially we believe the parties in the market should be able to introduce new products and prices without undue restrictions,'' said Mr. Tibbles.

But everything Cable and Wireless wishes to do requires Government permission.

This was fine in the monopoly era but does not make economic sense any more, said Mr. Tibbles.

"We've been trying very hard for some time to improve services in response to demands people make on us but we've not been able to make many improvements we wanted to.'' Cable and Wireless introduced major rate reductions after Christmas but these had been put before Government some time before and had taken some time to get through the "process''.

Whatever happens, Cable and Wireless "will continue to serve the Bermudian public in the only way it knows how.

"We will double our efforts to meet their expectations and exceed them where we can,'' said Mr. Tibbles.

But he added: "We are extremely concerned that a level playing field exists.'' John Tibbles