UK - 20 June 2002 (PRN): Cable & Wireless, the global telecommunications group, announced an agreement with Tiscali International Network, the carrier arm of Tiscali, the European Internet Company, to connect its Content Delivery Network (CDN) into Tiscali's pan-European network, spanning 14 countries. Cable & Wireless' growing list of content provider customers will now benefit from guaranteed high-speed and reliable connectivity to Tiscali's customer base of 7.4 million active users.

This agreement will significantly extend the pan-European penetration of Cable & Wireless' content delivery services, supplementing the coverage of its own high-speed IP network. Cable & Wireless will place its CDN server-clusters at Tiscali's points of presence (PoPs) in 14 countries across Europe, using its intelligent web-caching system to optimise the speed and accessibility of its customers' websites.

Under the terms of the agreement, Tiscali will gain a proportion of the revenue from traffic carried over its network. Customers of Cable & Wireless' CDN services include BSkyB, FT.com, MLB.com, ITV-F1, Sony Music and Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment, Sportsline.com, MSNcarview, ESPN, Microsoft, Disney Internet Group, BMG Entertainment and Cisco Learning Institute.

"We recognised that content delivery services are a crucial way to make sought-after content available to our customers at high speed, no matter where the content originates," said Paolo Susnik, President of Tiscali International Network and International CTO of Tiscali. "We are proud to be associated with such a major industry brand and are confident of developing a fruitful relationship."

"This agreement is an important step in enabling us to deliver global content close to individual desktops and homes across Europe," said Andrew McGrath, president, Service Providers, Cable & Wireless. "Tiscali has greater European coverage than any competing ISP and we expect that our agreement will significantly enhance our content delivery proposition to any content provider seeking the best possible access to web users across Europe."

DNs are a crucial tool for enterprises seeking to operate complex web sites for a globally distributed audience of customers and employees. Service providers with CDN capabilities, such as Cable & Wireless, can significantly improve the reliability and performance of their customers' web sites by ensuring that content is delivered as quickly as possible from the closest server to the end user. This means reduced travel distance for content and therefore less latency, which in turn cuts bandwidth costs as less bandwidth is required. The technique used by the Cable & Wireless CDN can improve web site performance by three to ten times, even for content that is regularly refreshed every few minutes.

About Cable & Wireless

Cable & Wireless is a major global telecommunications business with revenue of over #5.9 billion (US$8.6 billion) in the year to 31 March 2002 and customers in 70 countries and consists of two core and complementary divisions: Cable & Wireless Regional and Cable & Wireless Global. Cable & Wireless Regional offers a full range of telecommunications services in 33 countries around the world. Cable & Wireless Global's focus for future growth is on IP (Internet protocol) and data services and solutions for business customers. It has developed advanced IP networks and value-added services in the US, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region in support of this strategy. With its financial strength and the capability of its global IP infrastructure, Cable & Wireless holds a unique position in terms of global coverage and services to business customers.

For more information about Cable & Wireless, go to http://www.cw.com