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To: H James Morris who wrote (45344)	3/12/1999 8:24:00 AM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 164684

INTERVIEW-PacNet<PCNTF.O>sees evolving Web market By Alicia Seow SINGAPORE, March 12 (Reuters) - Singapore-based Internet service provider (ISP) Pacific Internet Ltd said on Friday the Internet market in the Asia Pacific region, unlike in the United States, was growing at different speeds. "In the U.S., it is a fairly homogenous market...but in Asia it is very different," Chief Executive Officer Nicholas Lee told Reuters in an interview. He said cyber activity in individual markets was evolving at different speeds, hence, Pacific Internet's "business model requires changes as we go from one (country) to the other." "The first business model is access. In other words, make money from access," he said, citing India as an example. "All the Indians are in the early stages. They want access first," Lee said, adding Pacific Internet was launching an ISP service in India this year. Lee said the second model was when subscribers got more sophisticated and corporations were drawn into the Web, adding this process would take about two years in the Asia Pacific. "This is exactly the opposite from the U.S. where the corporates came in and then the end users came in," he said. Asked how an ISP like Pacific Internet can compete for access against a domestic telecommunications company with an instant client base, the infrastructure and the convenience of a single billing, he said "We are not huge. That is the answer." Large telecommunication companies, especially the monopolist-styled ones, generally had a longer reaction time to subscribers' changing needs and a narrow way of thinking, he said. "They see things as access, in terms of how fast and how big and so on, but they don't look after the community," he added. In developed markets like Singapore and Australia, early adopters of the Internet now wanted more from ISPs in terms of content, community and e-commerce -- the third model, Lee said. "In Singapore and Australia, we are going after the on-line community," he said. On whether Pacific Internet saw itself as an Asian version of America Online Inc. <AOL.N>, an ISP giant which also provides local content and interactive community, Lee said: "It is not that we are becoming like AOL. This is the way that you have to evolve because the subscriber base is evolving." Lee said Australians were more Web-oriented than Singaporeans and they offered great potential for growth as the Australian market was very fragmented. "We are currently negotiating with the state governments in Melbourne and Sydney to see who gives us a better deal," he said, referring to the company's ISP service slated for this year. Lee said although Australian online service providers Telstra <TLS.AX> and OzEmail <OZM.AX> were big, they were not dominant. "People who have joined OzEmail and Telstra are not likely to churn so soon but there is a lot of new growth opportunity in Australia," he said. -- Singapore newsroom (65)870-3086; Fax (65)776-8112 -- E-mail: singapore.newsroom@reuters.com