slow in setting guidelines for telecommunications companies operating in the local marketplace.

The company's general manager Colin Little was responding to Telecommunications Minister Sen. E.T. (Bob) Richards request to the industry's regulatory body to set guidelines on when rate restrictions on Cable & Wireless should be lifted to allow full competition.

"This should have been done some time ago,'' he said. "How much longer is it going to take to gather the information and for the commission to respond?'' Sen. Richards asked the Telecommunications Commission for advice after Cable & Wireless submitted a request to be despecified from oversight as an incumbent carrier with a dominant market position.

Cable & Wireless has lost 25 percent of its international telephone market to newcomer TeleBermuda International Ltd. The company says this loss of market share is enough. The company wants to be able to lower prices in competition as it sees fit.

Regulations specifying it as an incumbent and dominant carrier restrict the company's ability to do so in order to protect TeleBermuda from predatory pricing.

Mr. Little also said Cable & Wireless might seek money from Government as compensation for having its monopoly taken away without due notice. It is Cable & Wireless' position that the company was not properly informed under its incorporating Act of a change in policy to a competitive marketplace.

Government disputes the allegation. Mr. Little refered to a $866 million cash payout by Hong Kong government to Hongkong Telecom, a company 54.2 percent owned by Cable & Wireless.

The payout, announced last week, is being made to compensate Hongkong Telecom for loss of its monopoly on international services six years earlier than expected.

GOVERNMENT GVT