GLOBAL ONE LAUNCHES REGIONAL HEADQUARTERS: HONG KONG SALES AND OPERATIONS OFFICE ANNOUNCES MAJOR EXPANSION OF REGIONAL BUSINESS HONG KONG, May 24 /PRNewswire - AsiaNet/ -- Global One last Monday announced the formation of its Asia-Pacific headquarters in Hong Kong. The new regional base is headed by Richard Kalbrener, President, Global One in Asia-Pacific. Also launched Monday was the company's Hong Kong sales and operations office, which is led by Jacques Grezaud, managing director, Hong Kong. "The Global One joint venture is organized to respond to the customer, the technology and the marketplace, with the most advanced telecommunications system in the world," said William T. Esrey, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sprint, and Co-Chairman of the Global Venture Board, Global One. Mr. Esrey is currently in Hong Kong for the launch of the Global One Asia-Pacific headquarters. In addition to its newly formed Hong Kong headquarters and local sales and operations office in Hong Kong, Global One maintains offices and sales presence in Australia, China, Guam, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. "Our decision to move senior management and other key resources to Hong Kong marks the beginning of a stronger focus on our investment in Asia-Pacific," said Richard Kalbrener. "This focus includes building on our extensive backbone network in Asia-Pacific and securing strategic partnerships which will establish Global One as the pre-eminent international telecommunications carrier in the region." Kalbrener reported that an example of the company's rapidly expanding business is its Internet service, Global IP, which is achieving significant growth in Asia-Pacific, and which now connects nearly 70 countries on five continents. Global IP now includes additional customers in the following Asia-Pacific countries: Australia: Connect.com, one of the country's leading Internet service providers, and Hutchison Telecoms, a leader in paging and cellular, are using Global IP to connect their customers to the World Wide Web nationwide. China: Global One was awarded the port access portion of an IP expansion with the China MPT in Shanghai -- an extension of the country's first nationwide commercial Internet service, ChinaNet -- and Internet equipment awards in both Jiangsu province and Qingdao city. Hong Kong: More than 10 major Internet Services Providers in Hong Kong are currently connected to Global IP. Indonesia: Indosat has launched its IndosatNet service which uses the Global One Global IP network to offer a full menu of Internet services. Japan: KDD has ordered multiple E1 circuits for its "Internet Gateway Service" with plans to upgrade to 45 Mbps by the end of the year. Mongolia: Datacom is using Global IP to connect Mongolia to the global Internet for the first time in the country's history. South Korea: Korea Telecom has upgraded its existing Global IP circuit from 256 kbps to T1 -- or 1.544 Mbps -- and uses an additional T1 from Global One to support Korea Telecom's rapidly expanding Internet service, Kornet. Taiwan: Global One is providing the Taiwan Ministry of Education (TANET) two T1s for more than 300,000 users, and provides the Data Communications Institute (DCI/HiNet) WITH full connectivity via two T1s to the global Internet. Global One, the worldwide joint venture of Sprint, Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom, offers a single source for the solution of voice and data needs of businesses, carriers and consumers around the world. Global one, with more than 2,500 employees and over 1,200 points of presence in more than 60 countries, expects first year revenues to exceed (U.S.) $800 million. CONTACT: Matthew Piette of Global One, 703-689-6040 or, home, 703-941-1526, or E-mail: matthew.pietteglobal-one.net; or Cynthia Ma of Shandwick Hong Kong, 852-2845-1008 or, fax, 852-2868-0224/