US internet service provider, PSINet has returned to the acquisition trail, spending $46m to buy providers in Germany, France, the US and Hong Kong, thereby bringing its international presence to a total of 10 countries, excluding the US. PSINet was already in Germany and France, but has now increased its presence in those markets with the purchase of Interactive Networx GmbH, the largest ISP in Berlin, and SCII-CalvaPro, a Paris-based provider serving mainly banks, shipping and forwarding agencies. The acquisition of LinkAge Online Ltd represents the company’s first move into the Hong Kong market, while the fourth deal on the list was in PSINet’s domestic market, buying ioNet Internetworking Services from Oklahoma, a provider which has developed its business by combining its internet offering with systems integration. A spokesperson for the Herndon, Virginia-based ISP said that it completed a $600m debt financing deal in April to speed up its strategy of international expansion, which is targeting the top 20 markets around the world. He denied, however, that the company’s announcement – that it would be reallocating certain site hosting and other functions for German residential and commercial customers to data centers located in other countries was related to the recent court case involving pornography sites hosted by CompuServe. That case ended with a CompuServe executive being sentenced to two years’ community service and a hefty fine. However it says the move is part of a plan already announced before the case, putting some of our hosting and web server functions out to the data centers to improve the reliability and performance of our network.
