Hong Kong, China, Asia - new carrier services aimed a reinforcing e-mail, DSL support and hosted IP offerings.

First, BellSouth unveiled offerings for its FastAccess Business DSL service.

The products include Business Domain Email, shared Web hosting and business-class support.

Business Domain Name Email lets customers who purchase a FastAccess Business DSL product be eligible to receive a free new domain name and custom e-mail account such as sales@mygrowingbusiness.com. Customers will have the ability to purchase additional custom e-mail accounts individually or in a package, BellSouth says.

Shared Web hosting allows small-business customers to economically expand their visibility and reach by building a Web presence for online commerce and customer communications, BellSouth says.

Packages start at $7.95 per month and provide options for bandwidth and disk space. E-commerce features also are available for businesses to take orders online.

Shared Web hosting services receive continuous network and technical support from BellSouth, the carrier says.

Business-class support provides premium services for business DSL customers.This includes a 24-hour repair guarantee, and a continuous dedicated business technical support desk.

Customers can receive a credit for every day they are out of service more than 24 hours plus an additional 10% of their monthly charge.

These services follow last month's rollout of an Internet security suite of products for residential and business DSL customers.

Meanwhile, MCI is adding DSL service to its enterprise access offerings in six more markets, including China.

The company offers DSL as a less-expensive alternative to dedicated leased lines and other forms of data access, aiming primarily at smaller branch offices of multinational companies, as well as back-up connectivity to offices that have a leased line or other access, says Myles Gene Kearon, MCFs global business partner manager. The carrier is trying to make DSL available in as many countries as possible, he says.

DSL was newly available last week in Thailand, the Philippines, Israel and Hong Kong. It will be available in China and Singapore next month.

In China, MCI will provide Asymmetric DSL (ADSL) through partner China Network Communications Group Corp. (China Netcom), China's second largest fixed-line telecom carrier. The service will be available in most major metropolitan areas across all provinces and will offer a downstream speed of 512K bit/sec and an upstream speed of 128K bit/sec, according to MCI.

Pacific Internet Ltd. is MCI's partner for DSL in Thailand, the Philippines and Hong Kong. In those countries, speeds will vary In Israel, MCI is working with Golden Lines, offering DSL services ranging from 64K bit/sec to 1.5M bit/sec. MCI also plans to offer DSL in Malaysia and Peru over the next several months, the company says. In Singapore, as in Australia and some other countries, DSL will be provided by local MCI operating companies, Kearon said.

MCI also offers a DSL option in the U.S. and in Belgium, France, Germany Italy the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the U.K.

Finally,XO Communications and NEXL Network Systems have announced that they will partner to offer businesses managed hosting services.

The two companies will offer services combining XO's data centers and IP network with NEXL's managed infrastructure computing services.

Under a multiyear agreement, XO and NEXL will co-market and sell each others services through XO direct and indirect sales channels and NEXLs direct sales force. NEXL becomes the provider of managed services to XO managed hosting customers, and XO becomes a preferred provider of data center and network services to NEXL customers.

The services will be targeted at new customers looking to outsource the hosting and management of their Web-based applications. Customers will be hosted within XO data centers connected to the XO IP network.