Pacnet extends into Vietnam

Pacnet's  PoP in Vietnam will allow the service provider to deliver its Global International Private Line Service, with usage-based pricing, as well as offer data centre facilities to businesses in that region.

Bill Barney, CEO Pacnet said Vietnam's current broadband penetration rate is just under 3 percent, the rate 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," he said.

"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."

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, said Barney.

"Along with its burgeoning economy, Vietnam's international bandwidth is forecast to grow aggressively," he said.

"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 telecommunications service provider in Vietnam, we have established our first Vietnam PoP in Ho Chi Minh City which enables us to deliver network connectivity products not only into Vietnam, but also into Cambodia and Laos."

Barney said as part of its growth plans for the Indochina region, Pacnet are already looking to expand its presence to other cities in Vietnam over the next 12 months.

"[We] and are also exploring landing our EAC-C2C subsea cable in Vietnam to provide the country access to Asia's highest capacity subsea network," he said.