 FLAG was the first privately financed submarine fiber optic cable to link several continents around the world.The cost of construction of the first phase was $1.5 billion.As the executive vice president of Marketing and Business Development at NYNEX (now Verizon), Tagare was responsible for breaking through regulatory barriers in some of the most difficult countries in the world such as Spain, Italy, Egypt, India, Saudi Arabia, China, Hong Kong, Korea and Japan.