Cable and Wireless plc (NYSE: CWP) is making a bid to reassert itself as a European force by extending its MPLS-based next-generation network, dubbed the Multi-Service Platform (MSP), beyond the U.K. and into Ireland and continental Europe.

The British carrier has, in recent times, generated more headlines for its restructuring processes, the steadying of its finances, and its massive executive bonuses than for its network or services. (See C&W Reports Full Year, C&W Updates on Incentives, Europe Hit With Big Telecom Jobs Cuts, C&W Remains United, C&W Offloads Pensions, and C&W Offers £329M for THUS.)

Now, though, the carrier is talking more about expanding and enhancing its network and winning significant new deals. (See C&W Lands $337M Deal, C&W Deploys Glimmerglass, C&W Uses Italtel, C&W Wins Centrica Deal, and C&W Wins Agency Deal.)

And this might be a good time to focus on such issues as one of its key rivals, BT Global Services , is floundering, though others are gaining in strength. (See BT Bonus Brouhaha, COLT Launches Managed Service, BT's Numbers Hit by Rogue Unit, Infinera Bolsters COLT's Backbone, Ethernet Expo: COLT Calls the Shots, COLT Takes Ethernet UK-wide, and Interoute's Healthy Fiber Diet.)

C&W started rolling out its new network in the U.K. in 2006, when Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) picked up the pieces from a faltering Tellabs Inc. (Nasdaq: TLAB; Frankfurt: BTLA) deployment. (See Alcatel Seals C&W Deal and Tellabs, C&W Part Ways.)

The carrier rolled out the vendor's 7750 service router and has a Cisco IP backbone, and, having built out its British network, rolled out its MSP architecture in the Middle East and India. (See C&W Launches NGN in India.)

Now it's extending into 21 locations throughout Europe, and before the end of this year will have a network connecting its existing U.K. and international capabilities to various locations in Ireland, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Poland, Czech Republic, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Russia, and Hungary.

C&W says its MSP boasts 50-millisecond recovery and has five-nines availability that enables it to offer service level agreements (SLAs) for services such as VoIP and managed videoconferencing.

— Ray Le Maistre, International News Editor, Light Reading