Cable and Wireless was yesterday awarded a contract worth at least $5 million by the Bank of Bermuda.

At an official Press conference yesterday, the managing director of Cable & Wireless Eddie Saints signed the contract with Brian Peck, Bank of Bermuda's Network Planning and Voice Systems Manager.

The contract is for the telecommunications company to be the provider of the bank's global voice and data telecommunications network.

According to Bank of Bermuda, Cable & Wireless fought off stiff competition from around the world to maintain its contract.

The deal will leave the bank with a higher voice and data capacity at a lower cost that will allow the bank to test some of the up and coming technology.

Beamed in from Sterling in Scotland, where Bank of Bermuda have one of their information technology centres was Michael Gibbs, director of information systems at the Bank.

He said: "As our organisation grows in terms of locations, staff and volumes, we have positioned ourselves to adopt new technologies and to ensure that we will be able to continue to offer world class e-commerce services to the local and international community.'' The bank said it was responding to a growing need for an increase in demand for voice and data capacity, and the bank says its additional bandwidth will allow an improved ability to handle peak traffic loads and the high demands of emerging technologies and applications from the bank's main data centres in Bermuda and Hong Kong.

The links between London and Bermuda, Guernsey, Dublin and Jersey will have 100 percent capacity, as will the Hong Kong-Singapore route. The Bermuda-Hong Kong route will increase its capacity by 50 percent.

According to Cable & Wireless the system is reliable as many backups exist to eliminate the problem -- in the event of any failure on a primary route, the network will automatically re-route to a diverse, fibre-optic link.

Brian Peck, Network Planning & Voice Systems Manager, Information Systems Division, Bank of Bermuda, said: "When Bank of Bermuda was seeking solutions that provided access to reliable, high quality, yet cost-effective global voice and data communications solutions, we asked for proposals from the best carriers the world has to offer.

"The competition was fierce and there are some excellent suppliers in the market but in the end, we determined that Cable & Wireless was the most appropriate global carrier to satisfy our networking requirements. The Bank has always had a close working relationship with Cable & Wireless and we are delighted that this association is to continue.'' Eddie Saints, General Manager of Cable & Wireless Bermuda Ltd., said: "Bank of Bermuda's decision to entrust us with the management of its global communications network is a tremendous vote of confidence in Cable & Wireless.

"I am very proud of those members of my staff who participated in the successful bid.'' YOU CAN BANK ON US!