Tokyo, June 14, 2001 -- KDDI Corp., one of Japan's leading providers of telecommunications services, is pleased to announce that, as part of its move to improve the attraction of its EZweb wireless Internet service, it plans to expand the number of services on the system.

KDDI's cellular phone unit, au, plans to open up access to the EZweb service to portal sites operated by other companies and Internet service providers. In addition, KDDI will expand the business that handles customer payments for content and will publish the standards it requires to allow content onto EZweb.

To maintain EZweb's competitive environment, KDDI intends to carry out the following changes to our facilities and our system:

1. Opening the service to other portal sites

Other companies' portals are currently listed on EZweb in a certain section of the menu. Once a user registers a portal site's URL into their handset they can access it by pressing the EZweb button for an extended length of time. In the future, once KDDI has altered the menu in the following way, users will be able to access other portal sites much more easily from the start screen. There will be a new page called "Portal Sites," exclusively for showing links to other portal sites. From there users will be able to choose the portal site they want to access. This change brings KDDI's service more into line with the "Portals" pages offered by U.S. and European service providers where they list portals from other companies. Being able to select the portal from a "Portal Site" page and access it with one click will make access to other portals much easier. KDDI believes that offering easy access to other companies' portals by having links to them on our own menu will vastly improve the openness of the EZweb service. We will start offering this new service from fall 2001.

2. Making the EZweb service available to ISPs

Following the portal adjustment we will open a connection between our mobile data network and networks operated by Internet service providers. As in the example above, some customers believe that since portal sites are open and can be selected and accessed with just one click, then they can also connect with ISPs in much the same way. However, at the moment ISP connections are made through an EZweb server, and we are receiving requests from ISPs to allow them to connect directly without going through an EZweb server, and, in response to those requests, we are now going to allow ISPs to connect directly. To make this happen we need to make numerous upgrades to our network. The upgrade will proceed once we have received detailed requests from ISPs. EZweb will connect to ISPs from our wireless packet network via a router and then over dedicated lines. EZ gateway servers that correspond with terminals should then be set up on ISPs networks. KDDI will discuss the set-up cost of the dedicated lines and the connections with each ISP company that would like a connection. Schedules for setting up connections will be discussed individually with each ISP company based on specific terms.

3. Details of the expansion of the contents payment settlement system

Currently only KDDI's official content is covered by the EZweb payment settlements system, although in the future we plan to increase the content that is covered by this service. To proceed with this expansion of the content account settlement system, it is necessary to install specified modules into servers on the contents provider's side for sending and receiving data concerning charges for content. It is required that third-parties recommended by the Ministry of Public Management check the suitability of the content. Actual procedures for the set up, settlement contracts, the installation of modules and interface tests are currently being discussed. Once each procedure has been worked out then the company will start expanding the account settlement system.

4. KDDI will disclose its standards for accepting content
	KDDI will, from the end of June, show on it's home page the standards it requires for content to be accepted on the EZweb service.