AT&T Doubles China Reach

AT&T  wants a bigger piece of the action in China with its latest Internet data center in Shanghai. The latest build there doubles its Internet presence in the country. The telecom giant now has 32 Internet data centers worldwide, including nine in the Asian/Pacific region.

AT&T said the new facility to open this summer in the city will work with local service providers, which follows the same model as its first Shanghai data center, which it opened earlier this year. AT&T’s presence in China goes back 22 years. It has, by far, the largest share of the country’s Internet market, and has offices in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou.

So why build more? Growth, growth, growth. AT&T points to stats such as IDC, that reckons demand for enterprise managed service in China will top $3.7 billion and $8 billion in the U.S. this year alone. Also, as internetnews.com reported, China leads the Asian region in the number of DSL lines installed.

The growing role of the Asian Internet community, Internet naming organization, ICANN last week gave its blessing to the first Asian-based Internet domain name registry, DotAsia. The new Hong Kong-based group will administer the .asia domain.

AT&T is not alone in attempts to lure China’s telecom customers. Research in Motion (RIM) has announced it will introduce its BlackBerry e-mail device to the Asian market.

In other news, AT&T said it will open an Internet data center in Oak Brook, Ill.