PSINet, the Virginia-based ISP, has acquired three ISPs in Hong Kong, consolidating what it believes is its position as Hong Kong’s leading commercial ISP. The firms, SpiderNet, HugeNet and AsiaNet will be integrated into PSINet’s operations in the Chinese special administrative region, as it is known. Financial terms of the deals were not disclosed but the company has raised $350m in senior notes offerings in the past two months. PSINet has also announced that it has purchased dark fiber from Metromedia Fiber Network around the San Francisco Bay area, extending down through Silicon Valley. The bandwidth is the company’s sixth purchase and will be activated by the end of 1999 with full roll-out in 2000. It will be used to increase capacity at existing PSINet locations, which serve as termination points for both US and Asia/Pacific traffic. PSINet has acquired 17 ISPs this year, of which 16 were outside the US, including one in Canada. It says these latest acquisitions are a continuation of its strategy of having a significant presence in each of the top 20 telecommunications markets around the world. On the infrastructure front, it says it was the first independent ISP to purchase dark fiber and the first to activate it. It maintains that purchasing provides for significantly lower operating costs than merely leasing the capacity.
