Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and Matsushita Communication Industrial Co. will begin a one-year joint experiment on a community-based information network in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, from April 2000, the companies said Thursday.
According to the plan, an information distribution service center and about 40 participants including households and businesses will be connected to an LAN-type optical fiber network supplied by NTT.
The companies will study the potential of the network system by gauging its impact on the local economy and the possibility of developing it further in the future, company officials told a press conference.
The information center will be set up in a facility of Hokuriku Matsushita Life Electronics Co., a sales company for Matsushita products that is based in Nonoichi, Ishikawa Prefecture.
The center will store and edit advertisements and information about the participating businesses and personal information about the households.
Matsushita Electric will equip participants in the experiment with personal computers and television sets equipped with PC terminals so they can send and retrieve information.