Verio shares ended on Thursday in New York at 59.50, just below the NTT unit's offer price of 60.00 per share for common stock, and 62.136 per share for preferred stock.

The tender offer for all outstanding Verio shares is due to expire at Friday midnight (0400 gmt) in New York. Englewood, Colorado-based Verio manages Websites for some 400,000 businesses.

Some US Congressman have demanded that the US Government block the takeover until Tokyo and Washington settle a dispute over the fees charged by NTT, Japan's former domestic phone monopoly, for allowing other carriers to connect to its nationwide local phone network.

"We have not decided what to do with our Verio bid. We would like to wait to see the final results of our tender offer,'' said a spokesman for NTT Communications, the long distance and international telecommunications unit of NTT, the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue.

The 5.5 billion bid for Verio is NTT's largest foreign investment and the first 100 per cent acquisition by the Japanese giant, which has begun expanding into foreign markets after restrictions on it operating abroad were lifted last year.The spokesman said NTT communications will announce by next Monday the result to its tender offer and whether it will be extended. He declined to disclose how many shares have been offered so far.

Ntt Communication had already acquired an 11.4 per cent stake in Verio through a 1998 purchase for about 100 million.

"We do not have to acquire the entire company, the spokesman said. "Obtaining half of the shares would mean a success'' he added.

Yet the fate of the takeover bid has also become entangled in a long-running Japan-US political wrangle over NTT's local connection fees, which Washington says are unfairly high and should be slashed to international levels. Washington has demanded the rates be cut immediately by 41 per cent. Tokyo has offered to cut the fees by 22.5 per cent over four years.

NTT, which is 59 per cent government owned, controls more than 90 per cent of local lines into Japanese homes and businesses, giving it an iron grip on the domestic telecoms market, the world's second-largest.

US lawmakers have asked the Clinton administration to consider blocking the NTT unit's Verio bid until the dispute over NTT's connection rates is settled.

The NTT Communication spokesman said the political dispute had not affected its tender bid."We don't think the move affected our tender offer. We believe there is no link between our takeover and ongoing talks over NTT's connection charges,'' he said.