PACIFIC BASIN ECONOMIC COUNCIL
MAIN PAGE | SPEECHES & EDITORIALS | 1999 | TELCO'S ROLE

Accelerating Development in Pacific Basin and Telco's Role Tadashi Nishimoto President, KDD Corporation Monday, May 17, 1999 The Challenges of the Next Century for the Pacific Basin 32nd International General Meeting of the Pacific Basin Economic Council Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre Hong Kong, China May 17-19, 1999 The most important mission of telecommunications carriers was to build the infrastructure. In this regard, KDD has devoted itself to establish backbone network between Japan and Asian countries. Nowadays, various applications including Electronic Commerce are developed, based on the IP technology. In consequence, telecommunications are requisites to business as well as to private life. In order to meet the customers' needs, KDD made the following strategy last December when it merged with Teleway, a nationwide fiber-optic operator. Appropriate deployment of seamless services Economical seamless domestic and international services in Japan KDD's exclusive brand of services around the world - Global Network (GN) project Research and development of innovative and strategic technologies KDD Terabit Highway (KTH21) Project - huge-capacity, advanced next-generation network IMT-2000 - next generation mobile phone Local access - Fixed Wireless Access, Internet on CATV networks ITS Regarding the GN project, KDD began providing telephone services in United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and France in June 1998, in Hong Kong in January 1999, in Australia in March. It will also be provided in Thailand this year. KTH21, based on the IP technology, is a ultra high-speed transmission network with the magnitude of terabit, to which KDD intends to switch the existing telephone networks. As a result, it can provide higher-speed and more economical services. KDD collaborates with some Asian telecommunications carriers in establishing IP backbone, which KDD is planning to connect to KTH21 in the future. KDD has started experiments for an early commercialization of KTH21, planning to invite or collaborate with domestic and foreign academic institutes, bank and travel companies, and contents providers. The experiment includes application development such as Electronic Commerce and network verification. ITS means that cars are considered as high-tech telecommunication terminals. It will rely on nationwide optical-fiber network which runs parallel to the highways, resource of Toyota Motors Co., (KDD's major shareholder) and KDD Research & Development Laboratories which is rich in wireless and video compression technology. Up to now, telecommunications carriers have limited its range of business among carriers. KDD, however, feels that the relationship with companies of non-telecommunications fields are also necessary to respond to diverse needs of customers. Being the core business and the backbone of lifetime, telecommunications can lead other industries to accelerating expansion of infrastructure. In order to profit from technological innovation and structural reform of industries, deregulation is indispensable in various fields. Under the environment of industrial reform, telecommunications companies are expected to be not only the carrier of information but also information broker or infomediary. Their mission is to understand where the information is, who need what kind of information in what form and how to transfer it, and then to provide appropriate services. Telecommunications expansion will totally contribute to the economic development in the Pacific Basin.