Scheme for mammoth global network draws carrier attention

      Honolulu      The most ambitious global network construction scheme that has ever  been conceived drew praise and criticism when the father of the plan boldly  told telecommunications industry executives that if they do not join him,  their companies will die.      Neil Tagare, chairman and CEO of CTR Group, Ltd., last week said  Project Oxygen, as the plan is called, will be the foundation for a future  'Super Internet' on which all types of communications, from simple text  to video will travel. Tagare was speaking to attendees at the annual  meeting of the Pacific Telecommunications Council here this week.      The grand plan, first announced last year, has turned heads in the  telecom industry for its huge scale - it aspires to wrap the world in  198,400 miles of fiber-optic cable by 2003 for a cost of $14 billion - and  for Tagare's penchant for making bold promises about what the project will  deliver.      'We call it Project Oxygen because carriers who join us will survive,  and carriers who don't join us won't survive,' Tagare said.       Tagare promised Oxygen will provide 265 end points in 171 countries  with a minimum bandwidth of 320G bit/sec. The network will use ATM  switching. In addition, Wavelength Division Multiplexing technology will be  used to squeeze more bandwidth from the cable, Tagare said.      'Project Oxygen will never ever become technologically obsolete or  obsolete on price, that is a guarantee,' Tagare said.      Project Oxygen also will allocate 20G bit/sec of free bandwidth  worldwide for video content providers, such as television stations, to  distribute, resell and package video and television services, Tagaresaid.      Tagare predicted that the network will be 100 to 500 times less  expensive than existing high-bandwidth infrastructures such as satellite  and other cable projects.      But before Project Oxygen can save carriers money, it will spend it -  Tagare is traveling the globe trying to drum up the project's full $14  billion capital by December 1998. 'My goal is to travel one continent a  month,' he said. Initial backers include Alcatel Submarine Networks, and  Tyco Submarine Systems, Ltd., as well as Japan's NEC Corp., NTT  International Corp., Sumitomo Corp. and Mitsui & Company, Ltd.       Tagare's presentation drew heated comments and questions from the  audience - many of whom provide fiber-optic and satellite systems - but  several of the audience members said Tagare's grand plan is on the right  track. 'It's ahead of its time, which is not to say it won't fly,' said  James Savage, vice president, public affairs international at GTE Service  Corp. 'If you really believe the price of bandwidth will drop like a stone  and the Internet will move to video, all the bandwidth we have will be  eaten up.'      Audience members noted that Tagare's goal of raising $14 billion over  the next 11 months is 'ambitious,' but they added that he was a prime  force behind the creation of the 17,360-mile Fiber-optic Link Around the  Globe (FLAG) network, which already is in operation.      'In 1992, people were smiling and skeptical about FLAG, and now it  exists,' Savage said.      CTR Group, with headquarters in Woodcliff Lake, N.J., can be reached  at (201) 505-9000 or www.oxygen.org/.      Guth is a correspondent with the IDG News Service's Tokyo bureau.