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September 11, 2000
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| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
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NTT Worldwide Telecommunications to Expand Offering of
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| NTT Worldwide Telecommunications Corporation (NTTWT), a wholly owned subsidiary of NTT Communications Corporation, announced today that it has reached an agreement with KIA Information & Telecommunications Network Co., Ltd. (KIA-IT), to provide IP telephony routing and settlement services, dubbed NTT Communications Clearinghouse, to Japan’s second biggest international airport, Kansai International Airport (KIA). With today’s agreement, international voice and facsimile communications outgoing from KIA will be transmitted worldwide using IP telephony via NTT Communications Clearinghouse. KIA-IT will launch the service beginning October 1, 2000. NTT Communications Clearinghouse, which began this January 23, 2000, has been providing worldwide IP telephony Clearinghouse service mainly to ITSPs (Internet telephony service providers). NTTWT will now expand its target to include corporate users, and collaborate with PBX vendors to promote IP telephony Clearinghouse service. KIA-IT, which handles telecommunications services for KIA, operates some 5,500 lines within the airport. Due to large international traffic from the airport, KIA-IT has been looking for ways to reduce its international communications costs. To that end it decided to adopt the NTT Communications Clearinghouse to lower its international calling costs. In addition to cost efficiency, NTT Communications Clearinghouse’s IP telephony solution for corporate users is beneficial in that it can be used from existing telephones and does not require special terminals. Also, it provides simple dialing procedures for ease of use. Another characteristic of Clearinghouse is that there is no limit to the number of destinations a user can have access to. While the existing IP telephony service, which uses an intra-corporate private network, limits communications to only within a corporate network, NTT Communications Clearinghouse allows IP telephony communication even for corporations that do not have their own private network. Corporations that do own a network can use Clearinghouse to expand their IP telephony communications outside of their own corporate network, such as through the public switched telephone network. The required system modifications for service provision at KIA-IT were supported by NEC Corporation (Nasdaq: NIPNY) (FTSE: 6701q.l) and Clarent Corporation (Nasdaq: CLRN). NTTWT, NEC and Clarent will jointly continue to provide NTT Communications Clearinghouse’s IP telephony solutions for corporate users worldwide. Reference - About NEC Corporation - About Clarent Corporation Attachment - Outline of Clearinghouse service - Network outline of KIA-IT |
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