The Nippon Telegraph and Telephone group has signed its first deal allowing a competing telecommunications firm to lease its fiber-optic networks, officials of the Posts and Telecommunications Ministry said Wednesday.

Under the agreement, NTT East Corp. will let Tokyo Metallic Communications Corp., a Tokyo-based venture firm operating digital subscriber lines, connect with and use its fiber-optic access lines for a monthly rental of 7,898 yen per line, the officials said.

Optical lines connecting local switch areas will also be rented, at an annual rate of 100 yen per meter.

The agreement was submitted to the ministry on Tuesday by NTT East and NTT West, the NTT group's two regional operators, along with proposals for connection conditions. The ministry approved it immediately.

The conditions will give non-NTT telecom carriers cheap access to drastically faster lines without the vast investment needed to build their own fiber-optic networks. Tokyo Metallic said that it would initially use NTT's interlocal area lines to raise the transmission speed on its backbone line.

But the agreement, which was arranged through administrative guidance, may only be a stopgap measure to stave off criticism from new entrants.

The ministry had asked NTT to open up its networks as a temporary measure to secure a fair and competitive environment until formal connection rules are hammered out and enacted, a process expected to take at least two months.

In the meantime, the NTT group has been launching its own fiber-optic network services to homes and offices.

NTT East and NTT West together have 79,000 km of fiber-optic cables nationwide, mainly in urban areas.