AT

New Delhi, Mar 5 (UNI) Leading US-based communications company, AT&T Inc today said it will invest one billion dollars worldwide to build four undersea cables and to expand its network services.

''The bulk of this investment will be outside US,'' Regional Director (Public Relations) - AT&T Asia Pacific region Greg Brutus told reporters here.

AT&T will also build nodes, or switches to route network traffic, in Europe, Asia and the US.

In India, there are seven existing nodes and three more in New Delhi, Pune and Kolkata have been added.

The 120 billion dollar company plans to invest 33 per cent more than last year's enterprise investment and more than double AT&T's investment in 2006.

The company will initially offer virtual private local area networks over ethernet in 14 cities in Europe and Asia and will have a presence in 29 countries by the end of the year, Mr Brutus added.

''AT&T will also build a data centre in the Indian software hub of Bangalore by December,'' AT&T India spokesman, V S Gopinath said.

In 2007, Asia Pacific revenue that included India grew 22 percent from a year earlier, making it the fastest growing region for AT&T, Mr Gopinath added.

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