2001 Press Releases

TOKYO, September 5, 2001 - Internet Initiative Japan Inc. ("IIJ", NASDAQ: IIJI), Japan's leading Internet access and comprehensive solutions provider, today announced an enhancement of its customer Service Level Agreements ("SLA"), as of September 5, 2001. Under the SLA programs, which guarantees specified levels of customer service quality, the Company will raise the benchmark for an average round trip time across the IIJ entire domestic backbone network from 40 to 30 milliseconds (1 millisecond equals 1/1000 of a second). By ensuring that its various dedicated access services are subject to ever more rigorous quality levels, IIJ aims to further enhance customer satisfaction.

"Since we introduced Japan's first SLA system in June 1999, IIJ has built up a solid track record in meeting customer expectations for our quality services", said Koichi Suzuki, the President and CEO of IIJ. "In response to the growth of Internet traffic, which has been stimulated by the permeation of broadband networks, we are working constantly to expand and strengthen our backbone network and other related facilities for greater throughput performance. By adhering to stricter SLA standards, we are demonstrating our commitment to focus on services quality going forward."

With the new benchmark, IIJ guarantees that the monthly average for the amount of time taken for data to make the round trip across the entire IIJ domestic backbone will not exceed 30 milliseconds. If the Company fails to meet this standard for two consecutive months, IIJ will credit 1/30 of the basic monthly charge against the amount invoiced to the customer for the service. The program is applicable to customers of Internet connectivity services, IIJ T1 Standard, IIJ Economy, IIJ Data Center connectivity services, IIJ DSL/F service and IIJ FiberAcess/F service. Other SLA program obligations, relating to availability (a guarantee that connection to the Internet is always possible) and outage notification (a guarantee that IIJ will notify a designated customer contact within 30 minutes of the detection of a network outage) will stay at the current benchmark levels. Guarantees do not apply to situations not attributable to IIJ or to force majeure as defined in the SLA.

About IIJ

Internet Initiative Japan Inc. (IIJ, NASDAQ: IIJI) is Japan's leading Internet-access and comprehensive Internet solution provider mainly targeting high-end corporate customers. Founded in 1992 as a pioneer of commercial Internet services in Japan, IIJ has built one of the largest Internet backbone networks in Japan as well as between Japan and the United States. IIJ and its group companies provide total solutions including new generation network services over optical-fiber infrastructure optimized for data communications, construction of Asian-wide IP backbone networks, high-quality Internet access, securities, hosting/housing, and content design and systems integration.

The statements within this release contain forward-looking statements about our future plans that involve risk and uncertainties. These statements may differ materially from actual future events or results. Readers are referred to the documents filed by Internet Initiative Japan Inc. with the SEC, specifically the most recent reports on Forms 20-F and 6-K, which identify important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements.