Promoting B FLET'S optical fiber Internet access service, FOMA third generation (3G) mobile communications services and the convergence of fixed line and mobile communicationsBuilding safe, secure, and convenient next-generation networksContinuing research and development into basic technologies for ubiquitous broadband servicesLaying the way for an age of ubiquitous broadband communications
The NTT Group is committed to promoting B FLET'S optical
fiber services and FOMA third generation (3G) mobile communications
services as part of its efforts to supply ubiquitous
broadband communications. We are making considerable efforts
to expand our optical fiber service areas and provide IP
telephony services of a quality that only optical fiber networks
can deliver, as well as provide customers with convenient services
through alliances with Internet service providers, broadcasters,
and other content providers. In the field of 3G mobile
communications, we are striving to enrich our lineup of handsets
and provide an increasing diversity of services such as
newly developed mobile credit services. We will continue to develop
and deploy ubiquitous broadband services through pursuing
fixed-mobile and telecommunications-broadcasting convergence,
and enhancing Internet connection portal and other
upper layer services.
Building next-generation networks
The NTT Group is committed to promoting the building of nextgeneration
networks (NGN) to provide safe, secure, and convenient
ubiquitous broadband services. NGN technology is designed
to combine the high quality, reliability, and stability of
fixed line services with the flexibility and economy of IP network
services in the building of an open network capable of
maintaining the highest levels of security. Field trials are scheduled
to commence in December 2006 in cooperation with other
telecommunications carriers and service providers.
Initiatives
Ubiquitous broadband services offered by NTT
Click on the above link to view an introduction to the OCN Theater.
Utilizing a ubiquitous broadband infrastructure combined with
streaming technologies for audio and video content, the NTT
Group offers services -NTT Communications' OCN Theater
and Plala Networks' 4thMEDIA -that allow subscribers to enjoy
high quality and high-definition movies and satellite broadcasting
content on their own TVs.
High-quality broadband content is already available to a large
number of customers through services such as these, and we
will continue to explore the full potential of ubiquitous broadband
communications in the
development of new services
for our customers.
Research and development to support ubiquitous broadband communications
Under its Medium-Term Management Strategy, the NTT Group
is committed to continued research and development of new
technologies for achieving a safe and secure full IP next-generation
network infrastructure and a wide range of application
services for this network, including ubiquitous broadband services
based on fixed-mobile convergence, realistic interactive
video communications and global one-stop services.
We continue to promote close-knit collaboration among group
companies in basic research and development for the building
of next-generation networks. We are also committed to bringing
new technologies into the mainstream to benefit society
through partnerships with other companies and proactive development
of advanced basic technologies aimed at surpassing
current limitations to build the communications networks
that will be required by society ten years or more in the future.
Initiatives
Developing and proliferating new types of optical fiber cord
In November 2005, NTT Access Network Service Systems
Laboratories announced the development of a new optical fiber
cord that can be flexibly bent, folded, or even tied in knots without
affecting communication. Bending or folding conventional
optical fiber cords beyond a certain degree can cause breaks
in communication due to signal leakage, but because the new
cord poses no such problems, it is remarkably easy to handle,
and can be installed just like standard electricity cords. This
represents a major improvement in efficiency during installation that is expected to contribute to the proliferation of the
broadband infrastructure.
Preinstalled optical wiring kit for quick and easy FTTH broadband access from the home
;)
In November 2005, the NTT Information Sharing Laboratory Group announced the development of a preinstalled optical wiring kit for quick and easy FTTH broadband access from the home without the need for special optical wiring expertise or custom tools.
NTT has set itself the target of recruiting 30 million FTTH subscribers by 2010, and this kit, thanks to the way it facilitates installation, represents a major step towards achieving that target.
Research and development of terabit-class networks
;)
With more people than ever now using the Internet, the volume of information transmitted via the telecommunications infrastructure is rapidly increasing, and achieving the Japanese government's e-Japan Strategy target of providing 30 million households with high-speed broadband access and an additional 10 million households with ultra-high-speed broadband access will require considerable bolstering of the network infrastructure. To such an end, NTT Communications and NTT Information Sharing Platform Laboratories are participating with Fujitsu Limited, NEC Corporation, and Hitachi, Ltd. in a National Institute of Information and Communications Technology project to develop high-speed communications and broadcast technologies, focusing in particular on the research and development of terabit-class supernetworks involving the use of technologies for enhancing the transmission capacity of IP networks and the processing capacity of access networks. The five companies successfully applied these technologies in a joint experiment conducted in October 2005 at the Keihanna Info-Communications Open Laboratory in Kyoto.
Successful development of the world's first 2.5 Gbps system for the next generation of mobile phones
NTT DoCoMo is currently developing a fourth generation mobile communications system for the next generation of mobile phone handsets. Building on the success of an earlier experiment in which a maximum transmission rate of 1 Gbps was achieved, NTT's third outdoor experiment on December 14, 2005, saw the successful operation of the world's first 2.5 Gbps packet signal transmission. The success of these experiments has enabled NTT to move forward with its research and development of a wireless access platform for fourth-generation mobile communications as well as contribute actively to the development of international standards.
Experimenting with next-generation portal technology at goo Labs
Click on the above link to visit the goo Labs website.
NTT Resonant demonstrates the latest Web technology for
the age of ubiquitous broadband communications at its experimental
website called "goo Labs" which is provided by the
Internet portal site "goo". From August to November 2005 and
again from December 2005 to March 2006, Kanshingoto Antenna
(interest antenna) and BLOGRANGER -two new search
services which provide users with search results from the latest
news articles and blog postings tailored to their specific areas
of interest -were tested and evaluated in a fully operational
environment on the goo Labs website. These services
make use of new search technologies developed by NTT Cyber
Solutions Laboratories, including
Japanese language conceptual
filtering, a technology
designed to help users find the
information they seek even when
they are unable to think of definitive
keywords.
Experiments in digital cinema: distribution of Hollywood movies to theaters
The NTT Group has commenced the trial operation of 4K Pure
Cinema, the world's first network distribution of movies in highquality
digital form to theaters. Carried out with the cooperation
with both American and Japanese movie distributors, including
major Hollywood studios, digital data is distributed by
means of a high-speed network connecting America and Japan
via optical fiber cable. Trials have been carried out to study
distribution processes between studios and theaters and to
verify the feasibility of this digital cinema business model.
Since its inception in October 2005, ten
companies have joined the trial, and
the number of available movies and
participating theaters is steadily increasing.
This effort to promote the
spread of digital cinema -the next
generation of movie projection technology
-is aimed at improving and
enriching moviegoer experiences.
Development of a multi-point wideband IP conference phone with directional automatic gain control
;)
;)
Anticipating that videophones and other forms of remote teleconferencing will play a major role in the future of corporate communications, NTT Cyber Space Laboratories has led the world in developing technology to enhance the overall quality of the teleconferencing environment, including directional automatic gain control (AGC) for the automatic compensation of differences in the loudness of voices picked up by microphones, and the UEMCLIP wideband speech codec, which enables natural sounding voice transmissions. The application of directional AGC to teleconferencing systems with integrated microphones and speakers will facilitate teleconferencing by significantly reducing the troublesome set-up and adjustment of multiple microphones in larger conference rooms.
This wideband speech codec (UEMCLIP) is interoperable with a conventional telephone speech codec, and enables multi-point voice communications where narrowband and wideband speech terminals are mixed.
VoIP communications using this codec accordingly enable convenient and natural sounding teleconferencing.
The NTT Group plans to continue developing technologies for higher which quality speech communications, such as high- presence stereo communications technologies and technologies speech.
enhancement technologies that pick up a target sound from background noise such as TV or housework sounds.
NTT's lossless audio coding technology approved as MPEG international standard specification
The NTT Group, in cooperation with other research organizations such as the Technical University of Berlin and the Singapore Institute for Infocomm Research, has successfully developed lossless audio coding technology that received approval in December 2005 as an international MPEG specification. The NTT Group is committed to continuing its work both to support the new standard and to enhance the performance of encoding schemes.
Video server capable of simultaneous transmission of up to 10 HDTV video streams
;)
NTT Network Innovation Laboratories announced in May 2005 the development of a video server capable of simultaneous transmission of up to 10 uncompressed high-definition television video streams using commercially available PC servers and IP networks. The use of uncompressed data eliminates the need for dedicated compression hardware, and there is no loss of video quality no matter how many times the image is transmitted. Technology such as this, which can contribute to the infrastructure required for full IP network video editing systems for the broadcast industry, is expected to drive the emergence of high quality on-demand video content delivery system.
Super-high-definition video IP streaming experiment
In a three-year research project commissioned by Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, NTT Network Innovation Laboratories successfully achieved a world first IP streaming of 4K Digital Cinema uncompressed video data. Other successful experimentation included the use of optical cross-connect (OXC) devices for the high-speed switching of 4K video streams transmitted from two separate locations. The success of these experiments demonstrates the feasibility of low-cost systems for production and distribution of high quality digital content, real-time teleconferencing using super-high-definition video, and telemedicine and distance learning using high quality video images.
