December 17, 2004

Ministry of Internal Affairs and
Communications

MIC invites comments concerning draft partial amendment of Rules for Reporting on Telecommunications Business




The MIC plans to amend the Rules for Reporting on Telecommunications Business in order to contribute to a correct grasp of the current status of the telecommunications business.

The MIC invites comments from the public, in Japanese, concerning the draft amendment, until January 13, 2005.

Background to amendment:
The MIC plans to amend the Rules for Reporting on Telecommunications Business (Ministerial ordinance of MPT No. 46 of 1988) in order to grasp correctly the rapidly changing status of the telecommunications industry, and add the necessary reporting.

Outline of Amendment:
Under the existing rules on reporting, telecommunications carriers providing FTTH access services, DSL access services, FWA services, or CATV access services, must report the number of subscribers at the end of March, June, September and December. For the end of March in particular, they must report subscriber numbers by prefecture.

With this amendment, the September end reporting, as is the case for March end, will include reporting of subscriber numbers by prefecture.

Future Plans:
The MIC will take the comments that are received into consideration and go ahead with the amendment of the rules for reporting, which it plans to apply to reporting subsequent to April 2005.

For details refer to the Japanese web site
http://www.soumu.go.jp/s-news/2004/041217_2.html

For further information about this press release, please contact:

International Policy Division, International Affairs Department
Telecommunications Bureau
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications
Tel: (03) 5253-5920 Fax: (03) 5253-5924

Or visit
http://www.soumu.go.jp/joho_tsusin/eng/contact.html to fill in the inquiry form.