By Pacnet Press Release

SINGAPORE - Pacnet today announced the launch of its first PoP in Vietnam, enhancing network connectivity into the region's top destination for foreign investment.

“Vietnam continues to attract large foreign investments from countries including China, US and Singapore, which will fuel stronger demand for network connectivity in Vietnam. Our latest infrastructure expansion in Vietnam reflects our confidence in its economy and will enable us to support the country's growing bandwidth requirements,” said Bill Barney, Chief Executive Officer of Pacnet.

According to a recent report from the United Nations Conference of Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Vietnam leads the Asia region for foreign direct investment, with pledged capital tripling from US$20.3 billion in 2007 to US$64 billion in 2008.

Along with its burgeoning economy, Vietnam's international bandwidth is forecast to grow aggressively. Latest research from TeleGeography puts Vietnam's total international bandwidth usage in 2008 at 22.8 Gbps and this is forecast to grow more than 13 times to 302.4 Gbps in 2013.

“Through our partnership with FPT Telecom, a leading telecommunications service provider in Vietnam, we have established our first Vietnam PoP in Ho Chi Minh City which enables us to deliver our global network connectivity solutions not only into Vietnam, but also into Cambodia and Laos,” said Mr Barney.

“Being the leading IP-based telecom operator in Vietnam, we recognize the importance of cooperation with international telcos like Pacnet. These partnerships bring global end-to-end communications services under one roof, enabling our customers in Vietnam to enjoy both excellent service quality with the convenience of a single point of contact. We are pleased to be Pacnet's key partner in Vietnam and look forward to strengthening our partnership in the coming months as it expands its presence in the region,” said Nguyen Dinh Hung, FPT Telecom Executive Vice President.

 

“As part of our strategic growth plans for the Indochina region, we are already looking to expand our presence to other cities in Vietnam over the next 12 months, and are also exploring landing our EAC-C2C subsea cable in Vietnam to provide the country access to Asia's highest capacity subsea network,” said Mr Barney.

“With our series of data centers across the country that are equipped with state-of-the-art technology and operated by our internationally accredited network operations team, we are confident that our partnership with Pacnet will enable us to meet the most demanding requirements from our customers,” added Mr Nguyen.

With the new PoP in Vietnam, Pacnet is able to deliver its Global International Private Line Service, its industry-leading Global IP-VPN service that offers five classes of service and usage-based pricing, as well as offer data center facilities to businesses there. “Our customers will enjoy the same high quality network services available in other Pacnet locations, to run their mission critical applications such as ERP applications, and connect to their offices and partners around the world,” said Wilfred Kwan, Chief Technology Officer of Pacnet.

“In the next few months, we will also be expanding our product suite to include our comprehensive range of IP and managed services to Vietnam,” added Mr Kwan.

“Our enhanced capabilities in Vietnam, coupled with our strong presence in Singapore, will allow us to support the growing number of Singapore companies trading with, and expanding into Vietnam, by providing them an integrated solution for all their network and connectivity needs,” said Mr Barney. Singapore is one of Vietnam's leading trading partners, with bilateral trade reaching US$12 billion in 2008, up 22 per cent from 2007. It is also one of the top investors in Vietnam, with investments exceeding US$16 billion last year.

While Vietnam's current broadband penetration rate is just under 3%, it has almost doubled its broadband penetration since 2008 and has a huge potential for future bandwidth growth. It is also an increasingly attractive destination for offshore services, with Gartner ranking it as one of the top 10 locations for offshore services in the Asia Pacific region.