KDD is an
abbreviation for
国際電信電話 Kokusai Denshin Denwa, which is
Japanese for "
International Telegraph and
Telephone." It was founded in
1953 and operated until
2001.
The company's main business was building and operating Japan's international telecom links. The first of these links, the TPC-1 trans-Pacific cable, was completed in 1964. KDD went on to construct satellite earth stations in Ibaraki (1966) and Yamaguchi (1969), as well as a second cable, TPC-2, in 1976, and a third, TPC-3, in 1989.
Until 1998, KDD was Japan's only international telephone provider. Once their special legal sanction was abolished, they began competing with DDI (parent company of the cdmaOne cellular service), as well as the former national phone company, NTT. NTT won the contest, and KDD ended up merging with DDI to form KDDI.