TOKYO, JAPAN (February 26, 1997) --
WorldCom, Inc. announced today that it has significantly increased
its presence in Japan with the opening of new offices and an enhanced
switch capability in Tokyo. The new operation is built on the success
of WorldCom's existing business in Japan and marks the first step
in the company's plan to become a facilities-based provider of
telecommunications there. Having established operations in Hong Kong
last year, this announcement underscores WorldCom's growing
regional presence in Asia.
"Tokyo is a key strategic market for us as the company
strives to be the premier supplier of telecommunications services to
business over our own facilities," said Colin Williams,
president and CEO of WorldCom International. "Japan has been
served by WorldCom's international, managed frame relay service
since 1994. The new office will build on the success of this
operation by adding successive layers of owned and managed
facilities, as regulation allows, to offer the end-to-end managed
solution that our customers demand. Furthermore, our new operation in
Tokyo will deliver additional services from WorldCom's global
product portfolio."
With the opening of the new office, WorldCom announces the
availability of international private line services from Japan to
major business destinations in Europe, the U.S. and Asia. The office
will also support the sale and provisioning of Global Transitsm to
Japan's Internet service providers. Global Transit, a product of
WorldCom's subsidiary UUNET Technologies, provides high-speed
connectivity to the Internet.
The new office will be staffed by local sales and operational
personnel. Customers in Japan will now receive international frame
relay service, international private circuits and Global Transit,
which will be commissioned, installed and maintained by a single
organization at both ends of the circuit. Furthermore, in the U.S.,
and in an increasing number of European destinations, these circuits
will be carried over WorldCom's own highly reliable, broadband
fiber-optic network.
WorldCom is a telecommunications industry leader in the creation
of a seamless, owned and managed global network. In the U.S.,
WorldCom's fiber-optic network provides local and long distance
connectivity within and between the country's major cities. The
company has built fiber-optic networks in Frankfurt, London, Paris
and Stockholm and has been granted the regulatory approvals to
construct international facilities between them to complement its
existing international backbone network.
The company is building a fiber network in Amsterdam and has
operational international nodes, equivalent to that announced in
Tokyo today, in Milan, Zurich and Hong Kong. In 1996, the company
launched a project to build and operate the next generation of
transatlantic fiber-optic cable to meet the explosive demand for
bandwidth generated by the Internet and other broadband data
communications applications. This cable will also complement
WorldCom's extensive international backbone network.
WorldCom is a global business telecommunications company.
Operating in more than 50 countries, the company is a premier
provider of facilities-based and fully integrated local, long
distance, international and Internet services. WorldCom subsidiary,
UUNET Technologies, Inc., is the world's largest provider of
Internet services. WorldCom's World Wide Web address is:
http://www.wcom.com. The common and depositary shares of WorldCom
trade on the Nasdaq National Market (U.S.) under the symbol WCOM and
WCOMP, respectively.
