yesterday announced it had appointed two new senior executives to boost its chances to win the race to be the first to build its undersea cable operation.

Ed Weisbrot will now become senior vice president of network services and Eldon Blust has been given the post of vice president, business development.

Between them the new employees have more than 45 years of international telecommunications experience.

"Adding the talents of executives such as Ed and Eldon to the experience of the senior management team at GlobeNet is the next step in positioning ourselves to go head-to-head with Global Crossing in the international submarine cable marketplace,'' said Jerry DeMartino, the company's new chief executive officer.

"We have the vision, the financial resources and the leadership to change the way cables are built and bought.'' GlobeNet is attempting to be the first private submarine cable provider to reach South America with its 22,500 kilometre Atlantica-1 network.

The first leg of the fibre-optic ring is scheduled to be ready for service next September.

Mr. Weisbrot has come to his new post from Primus. He was instrumental in MCI Worldcom's precedent-setting entry into international voice and data services.

he also negotiated many of MCI's bilateral operating and technical agreements during the 1980s.

In 1989 he joined Comsat's International Ventures Group and helped develop the telecommunications infrastructure in Eastern Europe and Central America.

He went on to join Sprint International to engineer its European voice network. Since 1998 he has been the vice president of engineering and operations at Primus.

Mr. Blust was previously a senior director of global strategy and development responsible for the management of MCI Worldcom's offshore investments and alliances in Australia, Canada, Mexico, and New Zealand.

Before this he was a director of MCI global network services where he was responsible for sales, marketing, product management and delivery of MCI's portfolio of international private network services.

BUSINESS BUC