Rostelecom, Russia’s national long-distance operator, and KDDI, one of the largest telecommunications companies of Japan, have signed an agreement on the construction and maintenance of the Russia - Japan cable system to connect the two countries through a direct high-speed route.

Concurrently with the agreement on the construction and maintenance of the cable system, Rostelecom and KDDI will execute a trilateral agreement with NEC Corporation - a prime contractor.

The mutually beneficial cooperation between Rostelecom and KDDI, the leading telecom operator in Japan, is based on a long-time fruitful partnership. KDDI is Rostelecom's partner in the Europe-Asia transit (TEA) project in Japan. In addition, Rostelecom and KDDI jointly use the capacity in the RJK (Russia-Japan-Korea) cable system.

NEC Corporation is a recognized leader of the modern telecommunications market in the field of solutions for mobile and fixed networks, broadband and corporate systems, etc. NEC Corporation has accumulated a rich long-term experience in the installation of submarine cables in different areas worldwide, including the Sea of Japan.

The construction is anticipated to be finished by 2008.

KDDI President Tadashi Onodera expressed confidence that "the project will significantly improve our ability to meet our customers' growing needs for Europe-Japan and Russia-Japan high-speed communications.  I am confident that our customers will enjoy the benefit of seamlessly connecting their networks between Europe and Asia through the shortest route, backed up by the solid relationship KDDI has built up with Rostelecom over many years.”

"I would like to underline that this project will allow to arrange a direct high-speed connection of telecommunications networks between Russia and Japan and we feel sure that our undoubtedly beneficial offer will help attract a large amount of traffic to this route", said  Dmitry Yerokhin, General Director of Rostelecom. The signed agreement will bring the successful partnership between Rostelecom and KDDI to a new level of large-scale mutual cooperation and contribute to the expansion of traffic transit from Asia to Europe across Russia."

The project to construct a high-speed cable system between Russia and Japan is part and parcel of Rostelecom’s strategic activity. Today the Company has a number of high-speed connections to both Europe and Asia with points of presence in London, Stockholm, Helsinki, New York, Frankfurt and Hong-Kong. Rostelecom’s countrywide network gives international operators and corporate customers the shortest and most reliable terrestrial route for considerable traffic transmission between the two continents.

About KDDI

KDDI is the only Japanese company that provides both mobile communication service and broadband service. The number of subscribers to the mobile phone services is over 26 million, and fixed-line subscribers is approximately 7.2 million.  The KDDI group companies have turnover of 3,060 billion yen.  At KDDI, aggressive improvement of communications environment in preparation for the coming ubiquitous network society is underway and KDDI is aiming to become a "ubiquitous solution company" which provides high value-added solutions.