Monday December 13, 7:31 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
AboveNet Enters Into Joint Venture to
Bring Its Global Internet Network to Japan
Speeding Internet Traffic and E-commerce
Around the World
Joint Venture with Marubeni and Trans Cosmos Links Japan, the U.S. and
Europe into One Seamless Network
SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 13, 1999-- AboveNet Communications Inc., a
subsidiary of Metromedia Fiber Network, Inc. (Nasdaq:MFNX - news), announced today that is
has extended its global one-hop Internet network into Japan through a strategic joint venture,
AboveNet Japan K.K., formed with two of Japan's largest companies and high technology
leaders -- Marubeni Corporation and Trans Cosmos, Inc.
The joint venture will have far-reaching effects for the flow of Internet traffic within Japan and
between Japan and the United States and Europe. It will help streamline the routing of traffic
between continents to improve the quality of content, media, and applications delivered over the
Internet around the world. Marubeni owns fifty percent of the venture, Trans Cosmos owns ten
percent, and AboveNet owns forty percent.
``By extending our IP network to Japan, AboveNet is breaking new ground in the evolution of the
Internet as a global medium. AboveNet Japan will tie Japan and other Asia Pacific countries
more closely to U.S. and Europe and it will create a seamless global optical IP infrastructure
unsurpassed for speed and performance,' said Sherman Tuan, AboveNet CEO. ``For the first
time, Internet users on multiple continents will be able to navigate the Web and obtain the
information they want without leaving AboveNet's network.'
AboveNet Japan will build an Internet Service Exchange facility in Tokyo modeled after
AboveNet's state-of-the art facilities in the U.S. and Europe and designed to meet local
requirements. It is scheduled to open in the second quarter of 2000. Japanese ISPs, content
providers, e-commerce companies, and enterprises will for the first time be able to co-locate
their Internet equipment in a secure, fault-tolerant regionally based co-location facility built to
AboveNet's quality standards, and obtain fast, reliable Internet connectivity via AboveNet's
high-performance global network.
AboveNet Japan, which builds upon AboveNet's momentum in the Asia Pacific Region, is part
of AboveNet's strategy to expand its facilities globally and transform the performance of the
Internet around the world through a superior network and an infrastructure of high performance
international ISX facilities that are locally owned and operated. AboveNet UK, AboveNet
Deutschland, and AboveNet Communications Austria were formed with local experienced
Internet partners and are now operating facilities that speed Internet traffic in Europe and
between Europe and the U.S.
AboveNet Japan, like AboveNet's European joint ventures, will access AboveNet's broadband
network, which has a current total bandwidth capacity of 24.7 Gbps, and it will take advantage
of AboveNet's peering agreements with more than 300 ISPs and major network providers around
the world. It will serve Japanese clients and others in the Asia Pacific region linking them
together and to the U.S. and Europe on AboveNet's global one-hop network. Also, like all of
AboveNet's ISXs, it will benefit from the end-to-end optical IP network AboveNet is building
with dark fiber provided by Metromedia Fiber Network, AboveNet's parent company.
AboveNet Presence in the Asia Pacific Rim Region
A large number of Asia Pacific Rim ISPs currently co-locate their equipment and obtain Internet
connectivity at AboveNet's San Jose ISX. Among theses providers are AT&T Asia Pacific of
Hong Kong; Loral Orion Asia Pacific of Singapore; Hinet, SeedNet and AUNET of Taiwan;
Singapore Telecom of Singapore; Linkage On-line and HKNet of Hong Kong; KDD and
Mitsubishi Electric Information Network (MIND) of Japan; DACOM and Korea Telecom of
Korea; I-Phil.net and Globe Telecom of the Philippines; and Netspace, Vicnet and Paradox of
Australia. These providers are expected to continue their presence at AboveNet's San Jose
facility, where many exchange traffic among themselves as well as obtain Internet connectivity to
the U.S. and European markets. AboveNet Japan will offer these and other Asia Pacific
providers the option of co-locating their equipment and obtaining connectivity in a local facility.
Neil |
