INTERNET MULTIFEED Announces a Plan for Photonic IX Service

13,December 2000
INTERNET MULTIFEED CO.

INTERNET MULTIFEED Announces a Plan for Photonic IX Service

Tokyo, December 13, 2000 - INTERNET MULTIFEED CO. today announced a plan for the provisioning of Japan's first photonic IX (Internet eXchange) service. A trial service is scheduled to start in January 2001 on gigabit ethernet basis at Otemachi, Tokyo, a pivotal center for Japan's telecommunications facilities. Japan's major ISPs including IIJ, OCN, InfoSphere, BIGLOBE, @nifty and InterVia/DreamNet have already expressed their intention to connect to the new IX.

For the full-fledged launch of the photonic IX service scheduled in 2002, the company is also planning to build test bed systems employing the latest optical technologies such as optical cross-connect and optical IP routing. The test bed systems are to be installed at three locations at Otemachi by optical fibers using DWDM equipment, and to be used for joint trials conducted with NTT group and IIJ group (Nasdaq: IIJI). Through the test bed systems, the company will verify the feasibility of the service, as well as that of provisioning technologies for expanding the number of interconnected locations.

"The new IX will be designed to be optimized for the broadband era", said Koichi Suzuki, President and CEO of the company. "Internet applications are becoming more diverse, the amount of information exchanged is growing. In taking up the challenge of the photonic IX service that will enable terabit class transmission using the latest optical technologies, we aim to provide a new generation IX service for large-capacity, reliable switching of traffic among ISPs."

"Current IX scheme makes ISPs share network bandwidth through LAN connections, so that it may not be always possible for ISPs to secure enough capacity within the limits of locations and LAN switch capacity," said Mr. Toshiya Asaba, the chief technology officer of the company. "The benefit of the new IX service for ISPs is that they will obtain an IX environment that offers them exclusive use of large amounts of bandwidth with high network quality and redundancy. It is also expected to give ISPs a free choice of interfaces."

About the company

INTERNET MULTIFEED CO. was established in September 1997 by leading ISPs and content providers in Japan, and has built up a large scale information distribution center in Tokyo, designed to handle the ever-increasing flow of Internet traffic smoothly and efficiency by realizing high-speed and high-volume distribution to end users.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to the registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such State.

For inquiries, contact:
Ms. Junko Higasa, Media Relations Office of INTERNET MULTIFEED CO.
TEL: 03-5259-6310 FAX: 03-5259-6311
E-mail: info@mfeed.co.jp
URL: http://www.mfeed.co.jp/english/