Cable & Wireless will lay off 20

Advertiser Staff

London-based Cable & Wireless plans to lay off 20 of the 60 employees at the former Digital Island facility in Honolulu, part of a move to consolidate operations after Digital Island merged with Exodus, another Cable & Wireless subsidiary, earlier this year.

Cable & Wireless, which bought Digital Island in 2001, is eliminating the network operations center from the facility at 1132 Bishop St. in downtown Honolulu.

The layoffs will take place between May 24 and June 24, Exodus said in a filing yesterday with the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations.

Digital Island was founded in Honolulu by entrepreneur Ron Higgins, who raised millions of dollars in venture capital and took the high-speed Internet network provider to an initial public offering in 1999.

The stock soared at the end of the Internet boom, but collapsed in 2000 as the company lost millions of dollars each quarter.