VeriSign To Add Brick to Great Firewall?

[R. A. Hettinga]

<http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,BT_CO_20040219_000372,00.html>

The Wall Street Journal

      February 19, 2004 1:42 a.m. EST



 VeriSign To Set Up Internet Traffic Hub In China


DOW JONES NEWSWIRES


BEIJING -- U.S.-based VeriSign Inc. (VRSN), which provides Internet
infrastructure services, Thursday said it has signed a deal which is
expected to boost the efficiency of the Internet in China.

Under a memorandum of understanding signed with China's Ministry of
Information Industry, VeriSign, which provides the .net and .com
infrastructure, will create a Domain Name Service Internet constellation
site in Beijing.

The site will directly route online traffic through China rather than an
external location, a company executive told Dow Jones Newswires.

The Beijing location will join California, Washington, London, Stockholm,
Singapore and Tokyo, among others, as VeriSign's 14th such site worldwide.

Internet traffic in Asia is currently typically handled through California,
Tokyo or Singapore, Neil Edwards, vice president of VeriSign's Naming and
Directory Services division, said.

"China will now be one of the hubs in Asia. It'll be one of the prominent
points for receiving Internet traffic, so that's significant," Edwards said.

The Beijing site will contain a master list of .com and .net domain names
originating from China.

It will quicken response time for Chinese Internet users and boost online
security and reliability, Edwards said, since a copy of the traffic will be
available locally rather than through foreign connections.

"The other benefit is that other Asian countries will depend on China's
infrastructure, which makes China more prominent in terms of its network
exchanges," Edwards said.

The move is also expected to also help Asia as a whole, with the added
bandwidth reducing the load placed on other hubs since Internet traffic is
routed "based on the path of least resistance."

VeriSign expects to complete and begin operating the site by year-end.

"We hope very quickly to deliver the site, hopefully earlier rather than
later, but we can't commit to the exact date yet," Edwards said.

The executive said the company won't publicly disclose financial terms of
the deal, but that it was "very significant."


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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
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