be completed in the next week and sent to the US telecommunications licensing authority.

Director of Telecommunications in Bermuda Greg Swan said the comprehensive file, which will detail the aggressive way GlobalTel has continued to provide a service, will soon be ready after many weeks of work.

It will be sent by Minister Renee Webb to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in Washington DC, which has the power to impose sanctions on any of the companies it licenses.

The report follows weeks of battling between the call-back firm and Government. In mid-December last year, Senators and MPs voted to outlaw call-back firms from providing a cheap long distance phone service in Bermuda.

Ms Webb said she wanted to repay the Island-based providers, such as TeleBermuda International and Cable and Wireless, who had invested in the infrastructure and provided jobs to locals.

She said call-back firms, such as GlobalTel, Call Save and Fiber Tel, took an estimated three to ten million dollars of business away from the Island every year and put nothing back in.

However, GlobalTel has totally defied the ban, stepping up its recruitment campaign for new customers and lowering its phone rates even further. FIt has also been randomly calling homes and businesses touting for new business, and has constantly called its customers offering open phone lines for them to make calls when its service has been shut down.

Despite having equipment seized and its lines cut off twice by Government, GlobalTel continues to provide an overseas service to hundreds of people on the Island.

Mr. Swan, who has been investigating the GlobalTel operation since the end of last year, said he was hopeful Government would soon reap rewards for its efforts.

And he said inquiries were continuing to see if GlobalTel could be taken to the criminal or civil courts.

He said: "We are in the process of getting the package together for the FCC and will hopefully be ready to send it in a week or so.

"We believe the information we have is more than sufficient to get the support that we need from the FCC, especially in light of the fact that GlobalTel hijacked the pager system in Bermuda.

"When we shut its numbers down, they hijacked 50 other numbers that belonged to residents on the Island, in order to operate. That is illegal.

"We will continue with this until we get results.'' However, he said although Government was mostly concentrating on GlobalTel at the moment because it had been the most "aggressive'', he said other call-back firms should realise that they will be next.

GlobalTel has repeatedly refused to return calls to The Royal Gazette or answer e-mailed questions.

However, they have been reported in other press as saying that they believe they have a right to operate here and have the backing of the FCC, which licences all US telecommunications firms who provide a service overseas.

The Royal Gazette reported last month how the FCC could make no promises to Government as to what action, if any, it would take.

The licensing authority has only ever stepped in once before, placing a cease and desist order in 1997 on two companies continuing to operate in the Philippines, despite a ban on call-back.

Those orders still exist today. If those sanctions are broken then the companies could be ordered to pay a forfeiture fee. It is unlikely they will have their licences revoked.

John Copes, Attorney Advisor for the International Bureau of the FCC, said in January that the authority did not advocate US companies violating overseas laws, but said it believed call-back was beneficial to customers.

And he said it would only consider getting involved if countries could show they had brought unsuccessful prosecutions.

He said: "They (call-back firms) must comply with the laws (overseas).

"However, we do not apply laws from overseas. If they are banned in another country, that is contrary to our laws and contrary to what we believe, which is that call-back is good telecommunications policy and is quite beneficial to consumers.

"So, that is precisely why we are very deliberate and careful in invoking the powers we have and intervening at the request of a foreign Government.''