Network planning for a public switched telephone network is essentially the same as the company's business strategy. The social environment providing the market for communications services is undergoing rapid change in Japan as it evolves from an era of one basic mainstay service-namely, plain-old telephone service-to one in which a wide range of advanced new services are, or soon will be, available and there is fierce competition to provide those services. This paper covers some of the thinking behind NTT's strategy to put in place a flexible and effectual network that fully reflects the needs and desires of customers in this fast-changing environment.

The globalization of business where single products and services are designed, developed, and manufactured in many different countries signals a significant need for cost-effective and reliable information movement and management capabilities. Similarly, consumers are seeking technologies which will allow them to visit the Smithsonian, scan a book in the Oxford Library, and interview a Japanese monk for a school report, all from the comfort of home. A necessary ingredient for realizing this global society is a strong telecommunications infrastructure. Our paper describes some of the customer needs and technology advances that are causing a revolution in planning global telecommunications networks. We present a new telecommunications paradigm and study its impact in two key areas: multi-country network routing at both the traffic and facility levels, and global network robustness.

The establishment of an intelligent network service operation architecture is important for facilitating development and integration of service operation systems. To do this, the basic concepts and goals of service operation items must first be clarified. Then, the necessary procedures as well as the required data on the behaviors of customers, operators and operation systems must be described. These various points are discussed based on an operation study methodology.