February 19, 2004, 3:56 PM — VeriSign Inc. is planning to deploy a domain name service (DNS) Internet constellation site in Beijing by the end of 2004, promising to offer Chinese Internet users faster response times and improved reliability.
The infrastructure service provider said Thursday that it signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) of the People's Republic of China to deploy the Internet traffic hub.
The constellation site will be one of 14 that VeriSign operates around the world to support resolution requests for .com and .net domain names. The new hub will contain a master list of all top-level and country-specific domain names, directly routing all of Chinese users' online traffic, VeriSign said.
Global Net traffic has been doubling every twelve to 18 months and growth in Asia has been even more robust, the company said.
The China Internet Network Information Center reported that China had 79.5 million Internet users in January, up 34.5 percent from a year earlier.
Mountain View, California, VeriSign has also recently announced plans to deploy a DNS constellation site in Korea in order to serve its growing online population.
The Beijing hub is being deployed with the aid of the MII, a regulatory body charged with handling China's communications, software and electronics manufacturing industries.
In a statement released Thursday the MII said that it expects the constellation site to provide stability and efficiency to the country's Internet operations.
