International Ltd. has stepped up its plans to build a second undersea fibreoptic cable from Bermuda.

The $300 million cable will run about 7,000 kilometres from Bermuda to St.

Croix, then to Hollywood, Florida, underwater to Jacksonville, and on to Brookhaven in New York State.

The cable will connect Global Crossing's Brookhaven Long Island Station with TeleBermuda's cable station in Bermuda. The cable is planned to be operating by 1999.

TeleBermuda recently finished construction of a $50 million underwater fibre-optic cable running 1,350 km from Bermuda to the New Jersey shore.

TeleBermuda is competing in Bermuda's long distance market with Cable & Wireless Plc.

However the company sees its major market as reselling capacity to European carriers which want to route traffic through Bermuda.

"The joint venture speeds up the development of Bermuda as an international telecommunications hub,'' a TeleBermuda spokesman said.

The joint venture company will be called Mid-Atlantic Crossing. Global Crossing owns a submarine cable system of 14,000 kilometres which connects the US to the UK, the Netherlands and Germany. The company's cable is scheduled to begin operating in May, 1998 and will interconnect with the new cable.