Asian Carrier ISPs Planning to Establish a Joint Internet 'Point of Presence' in the US.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 28, 1999--

Leading Carrier ISPs in Asia Pacific region are to establish a Joint Internet 'Point of Presence' on the West Coast of the US.

APIC (www.ap-ic.net) - the Asia Pacific Internet Community, an association of regional carrier ISPs announced today that they have decided to establish an Internet Router at the Palo Alto Internet Exchange (PAIX) in California to serve as an interconnection point with the top level Internet backbones in the USA. The Router will also be connected to Network Access Points at PacBell NAP and MAE West.

APIC is an association of telecommunication regional carriers, all of which have major ISP businesses. There are five members within the association, which boast strong regional coverage and market positions in their respective countries. They are Dacom Corporation from Korea, KDD Corporation from Japan, Cable & Wireless HKT from HongKong, Singapore Telecom from Singapore, and Telstra Corporation from Australia. APIC members currently have a total of over 1.3 Gbps of Internet connectivity with the USA and all five have already established a presence at PAIX.

"In addition to our independent connection arrangements, we have decided to jointly establish this Router at PAIX as an efficient peering point for interconnection with the major Internet backbone operators such as UUNet. Sharing costs and aggregating traffic at this point represents a 'win-win' for our Members and for the USA operators with whom we have significant traffic flows" says Mr. John Milburn, Managing Director, Internet Technology Division, Dacom Corp. "Both sides will benefit from a more direct and less costly connection path".

APIC members aim to have the Router operational by the end of July 1999. APIC aims to embark on more cooperative initiatives in the future. "We have experienced tremendous growth in the Internet traffic in the past three years in all our markets and foresee greater growth in the future. We are part of the global internet and this is just the beginning of asserting our needs in the US market" says Mr. Yoshihiro Obata, manager, Advanced Network Development Department, KDD Corp.

APIC is the most active regional Internet association in Asia Pacific area with major carrier ISPs actively participating. For more information about APIC, please visit its Web site at www.ap-ic.net.