Local exchange carrier MetroNet Communications will invest $116 million in the Montreal economy and create nearly 200 new jobs between now and 2002 as part of an effort to provide competitive local telephone service. Some of the money will go toward building a 93-km fiber-optic network, of which nearly 30 km will have been laid by January 1998 in downtown Montreal. The company plans to renovate the former Teleglobe building on Belmont Street and use it as its new base of operations.