PSINet Inc has purchased more fiber capacity, this time through an agreement with the Fiberoptic Link Around the Globe Ltd (FLAG) consortium. The Herndon, Virginia-based commercial ISP has been busy snapping up capacity and ISPs over the past year, including a recent set of agreements with Metromedia Fiber Network in California. However, the Flag agreement makes it the first independent ISP to have a network that fully circles the globe, the company claims. PSINet has purchased fully-activated STM-1 (155 Mbps) optical fiber capacity from Flag, which is a privately-financed consortium with 14 landing points in 11 countries stretched around the world. It is majority owned by Bell Atlantic Corp and Cable & Wireless Plc. The cable stretches 17,000 miles from the UK to Japan, and runs through Spain, Egypt, India, Korea and China, among others. PSINet will use the capacity to better integrate its Hong Kong, Korean and Japanese ventures with those in Europe and the US, and provide a redundant capacity for its Asia/Pacific operations. PSINet says the capacity will be operational some time this quarter.
