BT Provides a Clearer Picture for NHK

BT Provides a Clearer Picture for NHK

Three Year Contract to Provide a Full-Time High-Definition Circuit From NHK France to NHK America

LONDON, April 12 /PRNewswire/ -- BT has been awarded a three year contract by NHK, a major Japanese public broadcaster, to supply a full-time High- Definition (HD) circuit from Paris to New York.

NHK currently contributes news content from its European bureau to its General Bureau for America in New York. From there the content is routed to Japan, via NHK's existing transpacific fiber, for contribution to NHK's HD satellite and terrestrial channels. Previously, content gathered by NHK's European bureau was only transmitted in HD format through the use of satellite.

BT is helping NHK to expand its HD network via Atlantic fiber through the provision of a compressed 60 Mbit/s, 4:2:2 format, fully-managed circuit that runs between NHK Paris and NHK New York and additionally passes through the BT Tower in London. This gives NHK the further benefit of being able to inject content via its existing circuits from its London offices, thereby delivering a highly cost-effective service.

The fully backed-up HD service, carried over two diversely routed circuits, is provided over BT Media and Broadcast's Medianet International fiber network. Medianet International is capable of transporting all data types up to 155 Mbit/s over a single network circuit while offering assured Quality of Service (QoS) for time-sensitive video and business-critical data traffic.

Eiichi Kashino, senior producer at NHK's News Department, said, "This deal allows NHK to broaden the range of HD content offered to viewers, particularly news and sports content. BT gives us maximum efficiency when liaising with our European bureau thanks to their robust, scalable and reliable European HD network."

John Beattie, head of broadcast sales at BT Media and Broadcast said, "Our extensive HD transmission capability at our hubs in London, Madley, Washington DC and Los Angeles, together with our highly flexible global transmission network means we can provide solutions uniquely tailored to our customers' requirements and add real value."

About BT

BT is one of the world's leading providers of communications solutions serving customers in Europe, the Americas and Asia Pacific. Its principal activities include IT and networking services, local, national and international telecommunications services, and higher-value broadband and internet products and services.

BT consists principally of three lines of business:

* BT Retail, providing a comprehensive range of communications and related services to more than 20m UK consumers and businesses.

* BT Wholesale, providing network services and solutions within the UK to more than 600 fixed and mobile operators and service providers including the provision of broadband and private circuits.

* BT Global Services, providing IT and networking services to meet the needs of multi-site organizations globally. BT Global Services operates in more than 130 countries and also offers international carrier services.

In the year ended 31 March 2004, BT Group's turnover was 18,519 million pounds Sterling with profit before goodwill amortization, exceptional items and taxation of 2,013 million pounds Sterling.

BT Group plc is listed on stock exchanges in London and New York. British Telecommunications plc (BT) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group and encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT Group.

For more information, visit http://www.bt.com/aboutbt

About BT Media and Broadcast

BT Media and Broadcast (BTM&B) is the digital media and broadcast services arm of BT, which is responsible for the provision of fully managed broadcast services and the development of the commercial opportunities presented by digital content. Its international customer base includes broadcasters and content and rights owners within the television, film and media industries, along with the corporate and government sectors.

BTM&B provides bespoke satellite and fiber-based solutions, using sophisticated digital content and data management technology, to transport and manage video, audio and data. Delivering live broadcasts from major international events, providing digital terrestrial TV (DTTV) networks and direct to home (DTH) satellite platforms and storing and securely distributing video content to broadband devices are just some of the areas in which BTM&B excels. An industry pioneer, BTM&B aims to deliver the highest quality of service, flexibility and efficiency through advanced technology and industry expertise.

BTM&B is part of BT Global Services. BT Global Services is BT's business services division, which serves multi-site organizations with European operations.

For more information, please visit: http://www.bt.com/media-broadcast

About NHK

NHK, (also known as the Japan Broadcasting Corporation) is the sole Japanese public broadcaster that currently produces and distributes programming across the world. Since 1964 NHK has been a pioneer of HDTV technology, when it started to research and to develop HD. It operates two terrestrial television services, NHK General TV (96% of Digital GTV would be in HD 2005) and NHK Educational TV (42% of Digital ETV would be in HD 2005), three satellite services, NHK BS-1, NHK BS-2 and NHK Hi-Vision (100% HD) and three radio networks, NHK Radio 1, NHK Radio 2 and NHK FM. For its overseas audience, it also broadcasts NHK World TV, NHK World Premium and NHK World Radio.

More recently, NHK has been conducting research on more advanced technology such as "Super-HD" an ultra-High-Definition widescreen system with 16 times better picture resolution than HD.

http://www.nhk.or.jp/

Source: BT Media and Broadcast

CONTACT: Cheryl Gale, +1-617-475-1571, Cheryl@marchpr.com, or Liz Swenton, +1-617-475-1572, Liz@marchpr.com, both of March Communications, for BT Media and Broadcast

Web site: http://www.broadcast.bt.com/ http://www.bt.com/aboutbt http://www.bt.com/media-broadcast http://www.nhk.or.jp/

------- Profile: Ent