NTT East Corp. and NTT West Corp. said Tuesday that they will launch Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line service on. Dec. 26. in parts of Tokyo's 23 Wards and in Osaka City.

The two firms are regional companies of the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone group.

The move comes after several Internet providers began offering the high-speed service earlier this month.

The Internet service, known as FLET'S ADSL, boasts a maximum downloading speed of 1.5 megabits per second and up to 512 kbps for uploading.

The monthly charge of 4,800 yen includes modem rental.

Subscribers will also have to pay a sign-up fee of 16,500 yen and have a contract with an Internet service provider.

FLET'S ADSL will be expanded first to all of Tokyo's 23 Wards and Osaka in February, to other areas of Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama prefectures in March, and to prefectural capitals and other major cities across the country in fiscal 2001, the companies said.

ADSL is a technology that exploits existing metal phone lines to bring connection speeds up from around 56 kbps.

The NTT group had been reluctant to promote the inexpensive technology as it tried to recoup its heavy investment in slower ISDN technology.

It was hoping ISDN, which increases actual connection speed by only 6 kbps, would suffice until it could offer fiber-optic connections.

But it is apparently being pressured by customers complaining of slow connection speeds and by the competition already offering ADSL.