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Moving Toward Ubiquitous Broadband Communications

Expanding B FLET'S optical fiber access service as well as FOMA third generation(3G)mobile communications services
Driving NGN development through conducting field trials
Research and development of infrastructure and services for ubiquitous broadband communications

Initiatives for the creation of an infrastructure for ubiquitous broadband communications

Growth of B FLET'S optical fiber access services

Following up on the e-Japan Strategy that it launched in 2001, Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in 2004 implemented a u-Japan Policy with the goal of promoting ubiquitous broadband communications. Having established a Medium-Term Management Strategy based on these policies, the NTT Group has put maximum priority on the development and deployment of the ubiquitous broadband communications services necessary for fixed-mobile convergence and other goals. As of the end of March 2007, NTT EAST provides B FLET'S optical fiber access service to approximately 3.4 million subscribers and NTT WEST to approximately 2.68 million subscribers, and optical coverage for NTT EAST and NTT WEST communications networks had reached 89% and 87% respectively.

B FLET'S optical fiber access service (NTT EAST/NTT WEST) Number of subscribers

This is a graph showing B FLET'S optical fiber access service subscriber numbers over the past five years. The number at the end of fiscal 2007 was 6.076 million.

Optical fiber access coverage

Growth of FOMA 3G mobile communications services

The NTT Group is driving migration to FOMA third generation (3G)mobile communications services in accordance with government initiatives such as the u-Japan Policy. As of the end of March 2007, NTT DoCoMo provides these services to approximately 35.53 million subscribers nationwide. With NTT DoCoMo Kyushu's expansion of service area on March 29, 2007 to the remote islands of Minami Daitoson and Kita Daitoson in Okinawa Prefecture, population coverage for FOMA 3G mobile communications services reached 100%. Future plans aimed at providing added convenience to all aspects of everyday life include the continued enhancement of speed, capacity, and quality of the FOMA network, development of advanced handsets capable of utilizing international services, and expansion of the area covered by FOMA HIGH-SPEED, a high-speed data communications service that uses the High-Speed Downlink Packet Access(HSDPA)protocol.

FOMA third generation(3G)mobile communications services (NTT DoCoMo) Number of subscribers

This is a graph showing FOMA third generation mobile communications subscriber numbers over the past five years.

NGN development

The NTT Group is committed to the creation of ubiquitous broadband networks that will connect people wherever they are and at any time via safe, secure, speedy, and high quality communications services that contribute added convenience to both individuals and the communities they live in as well as provide corporate customers with greater efficiency and new business opportunities. To achieve this goal, NTT is developing a next-generation network(NGN)that combines the stability and reliability of a conventional telephone network with the convenience and economy of an IP network. NTT's NGN was created with an open network interface to actively drive the development of a wide range of services through alliances with third parties in other industries, and field trials to test such possibilities are now underway.
→Please also see "Featured activities from fiscal 2007".

Optical coverage: Percentage of access network covered by optical fiber up to feeder points.

Population coverage: An index of service area coverage based on the percentage of municipal offices(town halls)of Japan's municipalities that lie within the service area.

The technology behind ubiquitous broadband communications

Developing technology for the next-generation infrastructure

The NTT Group is promoting group-wide basic research and development of NGN infrastructure using safe and secure full IP-based technology. This new infrastructure is also expected to serve as the mainstay of our efforts to achieve the goals outlined in our Medium-Term Management Strategy. We have successfully developed a number of new communications network technologies for creating future network platforms, including IP network technology that supports backbone networks and optical media technology for developing next-generation optical transmission media.

Topics
Successful development of optical transmission at world record speeds of 14 terabits per second Anticipating increasing communications traffic, NTT Network Innovation Laboratories recently performed a successful test in which data was transmitted via a single optical fiber at a rate of 14 Tbps over a distance of 160 kilometers. The rapid growth of broadband access has led to a relentless increase in communications traffic, and enhancing capacity while maintaining reliability of the backbone optical network is crucial to ensuring an adequate optical network infrastructure. The NTT experiment broke the five-and-a-half-year-old world record of approximately 10 Tbps for broadband optical fiber transmission. Although continued development is necessary before this technology is rolled out in commercial applications, it will enable the transmission of approximately 140 digital high-definition movies in just one second of time. High-capacity optical transmission technology delivering 14 Tbps of data over a single optical fiber cable

Developing a wide range of applications

The NTT Group continues to research and develop basic technology for a wide range of high quality and high security applications for ubiquitous broadband services.
We are focusing in particular on developing content application technology that will serve as a foundation for high-definition video distribution services and the distribution of content such as broadcasting, advertisements, music, and games. We are also developing data distribution platform technology necessary for digital rights management, payments, content distribution, and other common functionality required by content distribution businesses and e-commerce.

Topics
Research and development on NGN-based high-definition video distribution systems NTT Cyber Solutions Laboratories is currently conducting research and development on platform technology for NGN-based high-definition video distribution services that will enable the provision of a wide range of applied services utilizing metadata, unicast video-on-demand(VOD)content, and multicast IP broadcasting. Effective transmission of high-definition video has already been achieved utilizing the H.264 video codec. During NGN field trials performed in fiscal 2007, services such as VOD viewing of missed television episodes, automatic insertion of commercial messages customized to viewer's preferences, and digital terrestrial broadcast IP retransmission were provided. High-definition video distribution system

Index of Activities
Activities	Company
14 Tbps over a Single Optical Fiber: Successful Demonstration of World's Largest Capacity	NTT Network Innovation Laboratories Vol.1 Vol.2
goo Lab experiments to test next-generation portal technology (Mobile Movie Panorama, Memory Retriever, Opinion Reader for Movies)	NTT Cyber Solutions Laboratories Vol.1 Vol.2
Future telephone t-Room	NTT Communication Science Laboratories

Tbps: Terabits per second, a unit of data transmission speed equivalent to 1 trillion bits per second.

Metadata: Data used to describe other data. Metadata enables effective content data management and search.

Unicast: Transmission of data between a single sender and single receiver.