Asia’s leading independent telecommunications service provider, Pacnet, has announced the launch of its first point-of-presence in HCM City, in co-operation with domestic FPT Telecom.

A point-of-presence (POP) is an artificial demarcation point or interface between communications entities.

The Hong Kong and Singapore-based operator said the move was to enhance its network connectivity into one of Asia’s top destinations for foreign investment.

"Viet Nam continues to attract large foreign investment from countries, including the US, mainland China and Singapore, which will fuel stronger demand for network connectivity in the country," Pacnet chief executive officer Bill Barney said.

"Our latest infrastructure expansion in Viet Nam reflects our confidence in its economy and will enable us to support the country’s growing bandwidth requirements," Barney said.

"As part of our strategic growth plans for the Indochina region, we are already looking to expand our presence to other cities in Viet Nam over the next 12 months and we also are exploring landing our EAC-C2C subsea cable in Viet Nam to provide the country with an access to the Asia’s highest capacity subsea network."

Barney said the new POP would enable Pacnet to deliver its global network connectivity solutions not only into Viet Nam but also into Laos and Cambodia.

FPT Telecom said in a press release that Viet Nam’s international bandwidth was forecast to grow aggressively with its burgeoning economy. The company quoted the latest research from TeleGeography which put the country’s total international bandwidth use last year at 22.8 Gbps, a figure forecast to grow more than 13 times to 302.4 Gbps within the next five years.

The country’s broadband penetration rate is now just under 3 per cent – doubling that of 2008 – "promising a huge potential for future bandwidth growth", the company said.

"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."

Pacnet chief technology officer Wilfred Kwan said POP would allow Pacnet to deliver its global international private line service and offer data centre facilities to local businesses.

"In the next few months we also will expand our product suite to include our comprehensive range of internet protocol services to Viet Nam."

FPT Telecom deputy director Nguyen Dinh Hung said the company recognised the importance of co-operation with international telecommunications operators.

Pacnet would be FPT’s key partner in Viet Nam, he said.

"The partnership brings global end-to-end communications services under one roof with the convenience of a single point of contact."

Pacnet was formed from the operational merger of Asia Netcom and Pacific Internet. It was named the best wholesale carrier at the Telecom Asia Awards 2009 in March. It owns and operates EAC-C2C, the region’s largest privately owned submarine cable network at 36,800km, with a design capacity of 10.24 Tbps.

FPT Telecom, a flagship information and communications technology in Viet Nam and the country’s second largest internet service provider, now holds 33 per cent of the broadband internet access market share with more than 330,000 subscribers.

Last year it contributed US$10 million to the development of the $560 million Asia-America Gateway, an international optical cable project running through the Pacific Ocean. It also developed an international backbone transmission to Hong Kong via mainland China with an initial capacity of 20Gbps.