Bermuda-based Global Crossing has secured a multi-million dollar ten-year contract with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of Great Britain which will bring the body into the 21st century.

The contract with the UK government is to provide a global telecommunications network and associated communications equipment.

The deal has been negotiated under the UK government's new `Private Finance Initiative'.

The new UK network will, according to the Foreign Commonwealth Office (FCO), play a central part in modernising the organisation's communications systems.

The project will meet the objectives of the UK's Modernising Government White Paper and bring traditional diplomatic communication into the internet age.

British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, said: "Communication is at the heart of diplomacy. Our objective is to transform the FCO from an HQ with outstations into a single on-line global organisation.

"This contract, and our new partnership with Global Crossing -- one of the world's leading telecommunications companies -- will provide us with a solid foundation for out future communications needs and take the FCO into the internet age.'' The Global Crossing System will support about 8,500 FCO staff world-wide and will link up with a further 1,900 government employees in the UK.

The new telecommunications network from Global Crossing is providing a managed Global Virtual Private Network with permanent connections to 135 sites in nearly 100 countries - covering about 85 percent of FCO staff outside the UK.

Global Crossing contract The core of the network will be Global Crossing's Transatlantic links, the US and European sites being connected by high bandwidth and high resilience fire and cable. To support remote sites and those in difficult to reach locations, Global Crossing is building a satellite earth station in the UK to support a dedicated satellite network to 99 of the locations.

The FCO network will provide managed voice, messaging and data services to 240 sites worldwide and will use a mixture of satellite communications and terrestrial lines to do this.

Robin Cook