March 31, 1997 Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation

The Signing of the "Memorandum of Understanding for the Planning of the China-United States Cable Network"

The "Memorandum of Understanding for the Planning of the China-United States Cable Network" was signed on March 30, 1997 by AT&T;, China Telecom, HKTI, KDD, Korea Telecom, MCI, NTT, SBC, SPRINT and SingTel jointly. Minister Wu Jichuan of Post and Telecommunications of the People's Republic of China, Vice Chairman Ye Qing of the State Planning Committee, vice minister Zhou Deqiang of the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications attended the signing ceremony. These signatories have been conscious of a rapid growth in demand for high quality, secure and economical telecommunications service in the Pacific region and of difficulty to meet the traffic requirements by using with the existing cables. They plan to construct the China-United States Cable Network (hereinafter referred to as the "CHINA-U.S. CN") with latest technology available. The CHINA- U.S. CN, a cost effective digital optical fiber submarine cable system with the state-of-the-art technology, will link China, the United States, Japan and Korea and will meet the traffic requirements between and among these countries and beyond through the 2015 (see the attached configuration). CHINA-U.S. CN with four (4) fiber pairs as a loop will utilize Optical Amplifiers and SDH multiplexing, with a capacity of 20 Gbps per fiber pair (equivalent to 241,920 circuits per fiber pair). The supply of the cable network will be through international competitive tenders. This cable network will be ready for service by the end of 1999. With the completion of the CHINA-U.S. CN, China, the United States, Japan and Korea will be linked jointly. The other countries and regions in Asia, The Americans, South Pacific region and Europe access this cable network via other cables. After the signing of this MOU, the project will start immediately. Data Gathering Meeting for this cable network will be held in near future. Other telecommunication carriers are encouraged to join in this project.

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