it's success in attracting tourists and international businesses to it's shores.

Bermuda Telephone Company (Telco) general manager Mr. Ernest Pacheco, told Hamilton Rotarians yesterday that Bermuda's communications infastructure is responsible for much of the Country's prosperity.

"We believe our policy of modernisation and forward planning has been instrumental in the success of our tourist industry and more particularly, in our exempted company industry,'' said Mr. Pacheco.

"Without good communications, the tourist industry would be severely handicapped, (and) the exempted companies would never have come here in the first place.'' He said Telco's use of fibreoptic cables, which each measure a mere .0007 of an inch in diameter, will accomodate simultaneous video, data and voice communications in the future.

The cables have been used to connect all of Telco's switching centres since 1985.