PSINet Buys Sixth Hong Kong ISP

PSINet Inc. Tuesday announced it has acquired its sixth Hong Kong ISP in 18 months.

The purchase of Global Link, a small business and consumer ISP, is part of PSINet’s global strategy to expand in the top 20 telecommunications markets worldwide.

Although only the 19th of these markets, the US-based ISP takes Hong Kong seriously because of its fast pace of development.

Hong Kong has an Internet penetration of 29 percent, the highest in Asia, according to a recent ACNielson
survey. The two closest markets, Australia and Singapore, have 23.7
percent and 22.7 percent respectively.

The other Hong Kong ISPs that PSINet has purchased in the last year and a
half include HKGIS, Spider Net, AsiaNet, Huge Net, and the most significant,
Linkage.

In Asia, the Virginia-based firm also owns one ISP in Korea, Inet, and four ISPs in Japan, PSINet Japan, Tokyo Internet, RimNet, and Twics.

Globally, PSINet claims to be the carrier for over 73,000 business
customers and more than 2 million individual users.

PSINet recently invested in emerging markets specialist Orientation, a global portal network with Hong Kong origins.