Cable & Wireless of dragging its feet over enabling competition to take place.

"For the past year, TeleBermuda has been attempting to act in a cooperative, constructive matter to fulfill TBI's mandate from Government to introduce competition and provide quality long-distance service at a substantially lower rates,'' TeleBermuda director Kenneth Spurling said.

"Unfortunately throughout this process, the former monopoly's behaviour appears to be wholly inconsistent with the will of Government to introduce competition in the best interest of Bermudian customers.'' Mr. Spurling claimed Cable & Wireless was trying to avoid carrying out Government's order to interconnect the two long distance carriers to provide emergency back-up for each other in the event of a natural disaster.

By interconnecting the companies, the Island could always be sure of having communications with the outside world in the event of a disaster.

The Telecommunications Commission directed the two companies to reach an agreement on the issue. If the two could not reach an agreement, the matter was to be referred back to the Commission for final resolution.

"TeleBermuda has unfortunately been frustrated in all its attempts to resolve this matter,'' Mr. Spurling said. "Cable & Wireless has rejected TeleBermuda's proposal for immediate interconnection at Cable & Wireless full retail rates.

He added they were referring the matter back to the Commission to rule on the issue.

But Cable & Wireless general manager John Tibbles yesterday said the company had always assured Government that in times of strife, Bermuda would be linked to the outside world.

"As far as any national emergency such as a hurricane is concerned, we have made it very plain to Government that we would ensure continuity of service as we always have done in the past as part of our obligation to Bermuda.'' He added: "Telecommunications is a difficult and complex business requiring extensive investment and planning to provide truly reliable service and people seeking to enter the business have to ensure they can meet these obligations and expectations themselves.''