MPHPT Communications News No.14

Their curricula vitae are as follows:

Mr. KATO Norifumi
Senior Vice-Minister for Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications

Member of the House of Councillors
Date of Birth: December 19, 1948
Place of Birth: Okayama Prefecture
Education:
March 1971: Graduated from the Faculty of Commerce, Chuo University

Career:
April 1971: Secretary to the Governor of Okayama Prefecture
July 1974: First Secretary to Councillor KATO Takenori
November 1977: Secretary to the Minister of Home Affairs
December 1978: First Secretary to Councillor KATO Takenori
April 1989: President of Okayama Butoku Kan, Budo Gakuin
June 1989: President, the Social Welfare Juridical Person Nichirin Kai
July 1992: First elected to the House of Councillors (the 16th Election)
August 1995 - January 1996: State Secretary for International Trade and Industry
September 1997 - July 1998: State Secretary for Science and Technology
July 1998: Reelected to the House of Councillors (the 18th Election)
September 2000 - January 2001: Chairman, Standing Committee on Economy, Trade and Industry, the House of Councillors
January 2001 - September 2001: Chairman, Standing Committee on Economy, Trade and Industry, the House of Councillors
October 2002: Senior Vice-Minister for Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications

Mr. YOSHIDA Rokuzaemon
Parliamentary Secretary for Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications (in charge of the Information and Communications Policy Bureau and the Telecommunications Bureau, etc.)

Member of the House of Representatives
Date of Birth: December 15, 1939
Place of Birth: Niigata Prefecture
Education:
March 1963: Graduated from the Faculty of Science and Engineering, Waseda University

Career:
April 1963 - March 1966: TODA CORPORATION
April 1966: President, YOSHIDA GUMI CORPORATION
March 1972: Yoshida Rokuzaemon 1st-class Architect, Japan
April 1983 - October 1990: Member of Niigata Prefectural Assembly
July 1983: Advisor, YOSHIDA-GUMI CORPORATION
October 1996: First elected to the House of Representatives (the 41st Election)
June 2000: Reelected to the House of Representatives (the 42nd Election)
January 2001 - April 2001: Parliamentary Secretary for Land, Infrastructure and Transport
May 2001 - September 2002: Deputy Secretary-General, Liberal Democratic Party
January 2002 - October 2002: Senior Director of the Special Committee on Disasters, the House of Representatives
October 2002: Parliamentary Secretary for Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications

Mr. IWANAGA Mineichi
Parliamentary Secretary for Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications
Member of the House of Representatives

Date of Birth: September 5, 1941
Place of Birth: Shiga Prefecture
Education:
September 1962: Hiatus from the Faculty of Law, Chuo University

Career:
April 1966: President, Shiga Youth Association
April 1967: President, Shigaraki Tanzo Co., Ltd.
May 1971 - March 1975: Member of Shigaraki Town Assembly
April 1975 - April 1995: Member of Shiga Prefectural Assembly
March 1988 - March 1989: Deputy Speaker, Shiga Prefectural Assembly
March 1990 - March 1991: Speaker, Shiga Prefectural Assembly
October 1996: First elected to the House of Representatives (the 41st Election)
June 2000: Reelected to the House of Representatives (the 42nd Election)
May 2001 - January 2002: Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries
April 2002: Parliamentary Secretary for Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications

Mr. KISHI Kouichi
Parliamentary Secretary for Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications

Member of the House of Councillors
Date of Birth: June 3, 1940
Place of Birth: Yamagata Prefecture
Education:
March 1964: Graduated from the School of Political Science and Economics I, Waseda University

Career:
May 1967 - April 1971: Member of Kaneyama Town Assembly, Yamagata Prefecture
May 1971 - April 1998: Mayor of Kaneyama Town, Yamagata Prefecture
July 1997: Managing Director of the National Association of Towns and Villages
July 1998: First elected to the House of Councillors (the 18th Election)
October 2002: Parliamentary Secretary for Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications

On October 1 (local time), 2002, Mr. UTSUMI Yoshio has been re-elected for a second term as Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) with a majority of 123 votes (of 143 valid votes cast) at the election of Secretary-General taken place during the 16th Plenipotentiary Conference of ITU underway in Marrakesh, Morocco, from September 23 through October 18, 2002.
Mr. UTSUMI was elected as Secretary-General of ITU for his first term at the 1998 Minneapolis Plenipotentiary Conference and assumed his duties as Secretary-General in February 1999. Since then, he worked energetically on the ITU reform, etc. in order to make ITU a leading force remaining in the world telecommunications arena.

Furthermore, he dealt actively with the process of organizational revamp at ITU, in order to meet rapid environmental changes surrounding the information and telecommunications field, and skilfully handled the coordination, etc. regarding standardization activities for IMT-2000, the next-generation mobile communications systems.

Secretary-General UTSUMI's term of office will be four years from February 2003 through January 2007.
There are many expectations that, in response to the wide-ranging support upon balloting from Member States, his productive vision and powerful leverage will be effective toward the global development of telecommunications in the 21st century.

ICT Cooperation among Japan, China and Korea to Be Strengthened
First Japan-China-Korea ICT Ministerial Meeting Successfully Concluded

On September 24, MPHPT Minister KATAYAMA Toranosuke convened the First Japan-China-Korea ICT Ministerial Meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco, with Chinese Minister WU Jichuan, Ministry of Information Industry (MII), and Korean Minister LEE Sangchul, Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC), for the purpose of promoting mutual understanding, cooperation and collaborative ties among Japan, China and Korea in the information and communications technology (ICT) field. Executives and stakeholders from the private sector and research institutes of the three countries participated in this meeting.

After candid and wide-ranging exchanges of views during the meeting about promotion of Japan-China-Korea trilateral cooperation in the ICT field, the three ministers reached an agreement to promote the following cooperation toward further development in the ICT field and adopted the outcomes of the ministerial meeting as a joint statement.

Minister KATAYAMA Toranosuke (center) convenes the First Japan-China-Korea ICT Ministerial Meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco, with Chinese Minister WU Jichuan, Ministry of Information Industry (right), and Korean Minister LEE Sangchul, Ministry of Information and Communication (left).

1. Cooperation on ICT R&D - Efforts to Cope with the East Asia Kanji (Chinese characters) Cultural Arena, etc. -
The three ministers share common recognitions that in order to enhance Asian capabilities for information transmission, i) it is essential to increase information transmission/distribution in reflection of the Asian cultural diversity, ii) it is vital for the three countries to realize an environment under which the three countries of Japan, China and Korea with the same cultural basis of Kanji characters can transmit and share information written in their own languages. To this end, the ministers agreed to promote cooperation on joint ICT R&D projects concerning information transmission in the East Asia Cultural Arena.

2. Implementation of joint experiments on IPv6
Toward promotion of IPv6 diffusion in Japan, China and Korea at an early stage and in the Asian region, the ministers agreed that the three countries are to promote joint experiments on IPv6 through collaboration of experts from the three countries.

3. Promotion of cooperation on the third-generation (3G) mobile communications systems
In order to further standardize detailed specifications of 3G systems, the three ministers agreed to promote technology interchanges. Upon introduction of 3G systems in China, the ministers reached a common recognition that information exchanges are to be promoted on technical standards concerning operations needed upon realizing an environment under which roaming functions are enabled in any location within the three countries.

4. Promotion of policy dialogues
The three ministers agreed to strengthen trilateral policy dialogues in order to promote further harmonization on pro-competitive policy and broadband platform introduction policies.

5. Cooperation concerning 2008 Beijing Olympic Games
Based on experiences in high-definition video transmission experiments conducted by Japan and Korea at the 2002 FIFA World Cup™, the three ministers agreed to conduct research cooperation at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games so as to facilitate large-capacity video transmission under a broadband environment.

6. Cooperation concerning broadcasting
The three ministers reached a common recognition that exchanges on broadcast programming production, transmission technology, etc. are to be promoted, so as to facilitate exchanges of broadcast programming among the three countries and promote mutual cultural exchanges.

7. Establishment of collaborative systems of ASEAN + 3 in the ICT field
In response to establishment of collaborative systems of the ASEAN + 1 (Japan) in the ICT field, the three ministers agreed to make efforts toward formulation of ASEAN + 3 (Japan, China and Korea) frameworks in the ICT field. In order to promote the abovementioned cooperation, the three ministers agreed to establish meetings at the expert level in each field or strengthen the existing cooperative schemes.
The next ministerial meeting will be held in Korea in 2003.

[Reference: Participants]
(1) Japan: Minister KATAYAMA, Vice-Minister for Policy Coordination TSUKIO; Director-General NABEKURA, Telecommunications Bureau; Director-General Mori, International Affairs Department; and others
(2) China: Minister WU Jichuan, Ministry of Information Industry (MII); Director-General So, Telecommunications Bureau, MII; and others
(3) Korea: Minister LEE Sangchul, Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC); Director-General Yang, International Cooperation, MIC; and others

Toward Introduction of Ultra-Wideband Radio Systems
- Inquiry of the Telecommunications Council -

On September 30, 2002, MPHPT inquired of the Telecommunications Council (Chair: Mr. AKIYAMA Yoshihisa) on "Technical Conditions for Ultra-Wideband (UWB) Radio Systems."

[Backgrounds for the inquiry]
1. Along with development of high-speed access networks to the Internet, such as expansion of transmission capacities for subscriber local loops, etc., it is anticipated that various equipment with communications functions will be networked in order to improve efficiency of work at office and convenience of daily-lives at home. Such networks will enable high-speed communications that transmit large-sized data, such as video.

2. In recent years, UWB radio systems have been a focus of attention as wireless technology for high-speed transmission over a short distance. UWB radio systems transmit digital pulses across a very wide spectrum of frequency bands wider than several GHz bandwidth, thus enabling 100-Mbps class high-speed transmission and precision radio location systems. Upon introduction of UWB systems, it is necessary to deliberate on technical conditions, such as frequency sharing conditions with other radio systems using spectrums within the frequency bands to be used for transmission by the UWB systems.

[Outline of the inquiry]
Considering these backgrounds, MPHPT inquired of the Telecommunications Council on technical conditions for radio facilities related to the UWB systems. MPHPT will receive the results of deliberations at the Council as a partial report around September 2003. Then, according to the partial report, MPHPT will prepare necessary ministerial ordinances, etc.

Fig. Introduction of UWB Radio Systems