NTT Communications Corporation (NTT Com) announced on March 6 that it agreed with 25 of its global telecommunications-carrier partners on a number of policies to further improve its Arcstar (TM) global network service quality during the Arcstar Carrier Forum 2014, which took place in Tokyo on March 5 and 6.

The Arcstar Carrier Forum is an international conference organized by NTT Com to consider strategies for strengthening Arcstar-branded managed network services for multinational corporations. Arcstar (TM) global network services include IP-VPN, e-VLAN, leased line and Arcstar Universal One, a cloud-optimized network service that securely links closed enterprise networks with global cloud services.

During this year's conference, which focused on improving customer satisfaction, the parties agreed to increase availability, decrease failure rates and strive for a number of other improvements. NTT Com looks forward to cooperating with global carriers in these initiatives, ultimately to further elevate customer satisfaction.

This is the 11th forum since 2000 that NTT Com has organized in Japan for partner carriers from around the world.

In discussing this year's major theme, "Enhancing Customer Experience," the participants considered how to improve quality in terms of global network service layout, formulation, operation and maintenance. As a new addition to the forum, customers joined a panel to talk about what they expect of NTT Com and its partner carriers, after which a discussion was held to consider how these expectations could be met.

In a group working session, participants discussed improvements to obtain best practices by studying their respective procedures and key performance indicators (KPIs). Various suggestions introduced during the forum are expected to serve as stepping stones to improvement.

NTT Com outlined the KPIs that it considers most important and presented awards for outstanding quality-enhancement practices and achievements.

- Improvements Agreed to during the Forum

Increase availability

Decrease failure rates

Reduce instances of long-term failure

Improve rate of determining reason for outage as failure occurs

Improve rate of on-time delivery to customer

Decrease lead time for line delivery

- NTT Com Partner Carriers that Attended Arcstar Carrier Forum 2014

Australia: Singtel Optus Pty Limited

China: China Telecom Corporation Limited

France: Orange Business Services

Hong Kong: Hutchison Global Communications

Hong Kong: Wharf T&T Limited

India: Bharti Airtel Limited

India: Tata Communications Limited

Indonesia: PT Indosat tbk

Indonesia: PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia International

Korea: KT Corporation

Malaysia: Telekom Malaysia Berhad

Philippines: Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company

Singapore: Singapore Telecommunications Limited

Singapore: StarHub Ltd.

South Africa: Internet Solutions

Taiwan: Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd.

Thailand: CAT Telecom Public Company Limited

UK: Colt Technology Services Group Limited

UK: Interoute Communications Ltd.

USA: AT&T Inc.

USA: Level 3 Communications, LLC

USA: XO Communications

USA: Verizon Communications Inc.

Vietnam: Vietnam Datacommunication Company

Vietnam: CMC Telecommunication Infrastructure Corporation

- Message by Guest Speaker who attended Arcstar Carrier Forum 2014

Mr. Yoshio Chikayasu, CIO, HOYA Group who attended ACF 2014 as a guest speaker states as follows; "It is essential to have ICT partner who can provide a stable network with high quality, as we have offices all over the world and use a variety of services comprehensively such as a cloud service. NTT Com's high quality network and the strength of its infrastructure that allows us to have a total solution are very attractive for us. We strongly believe that Arcstar Carrier Forum, as a part of the "Kaizen" activities, is very significant to obtain highly reliable infrastructure. We would like NTT Com to maintain and improve its high quality network, and support us as it has been and from now on as our ICT partner."

"Having an ICT partner that can provide us with a stable, high-quality network is essential because we have offices worldwide that require cloud and other diverse, comprehensive services. NTT Com's high-quality network and the strength of its infrastructure enable total solutions, which is very attractive to us. We strongly believe that the Arcstar Carrier Forum has significance as a "Kaizen" activity leading to more reliable infrastructure. We hope NTT Com will further improve its high-quality network and continue to support us as our ICT partner."

About NTT Communications Corporation

NTT Communications provides consultancy, architecture, security and cloud services to optimize the information and communications technology (ICT) environments of enterprises. These offerings are backed by the company's worldwide infrastructure, including leading global tier-1 IP network, Arcstar Universal One (TM) VPN network reaching 160 countries/regions, and over 150 secure data centers. NTT Communications' solutions leverage the global resources of NTT Group companies including Dimension Data, NTT DOCOMO and NTT DATA.

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Source: NTT Communications Corporation