NTT East, West Aiming to Boost Fiber-Optic Services in FY ’07

Tokyo, March 1 (Jiji Press)–Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp.’s two regional units Thursday unveiled their business plans that commit themselves to attaining a net 3.4 million new subscribers to their fiber-optic telecommunications services in fiscal 2007 starting from April.

In the business plans, submitted to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, NTT East Corp. and NTT West Corp. will increase cumulative subscribers to a combined 9.52 million by the end of March 2008, up 1.6-fold from a year before.

Of the total, NTT East’s net subscriber increase is estimated at 2 million, exceeding the estimated net increase for fiscal 2006 by 500,000, while NTT West is projected to enjoy a 200,000 more net increase of 1.4 million.

In a bid to make up for a fall in revenue from fixed-line telephone services, NTT East and West will further promote their Internet Protocol-based telephone and broadband connection services. They will also push for such related businesses as video content distribution.

By the end of fiscal 2010, the NTT group now intends to raise the cumulative number of subscribers to fiber-optic communication services to 30 million.

NTT East and West expect the combined number of subscribers to their fixed-line services, including integrated services digital network lines, to post a net decrease of more than 5 million for fiscal 2007.

As a result, recurring profits at the two firms are likely to plunge 50 pct from the previous year to a combined 70 billion yen, on revenue of 4,058 billion yen, down 2.4 pct.

The NTT group’s capital spending for fiscal 2007 will remain unchanged from the previous year, but some 63 billion yen will be invested in the next-generation communications network for commercialization.END

(c) 2007 Jiji Press English News Service. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.