January 27, 2021 Result of Appeal for Opinions on Draft Revision of the Guidelines for Consumer Protection Rules for the Telecommunications Business Act and the Draft Revision of the Notice on Value Claimed and Confirmation

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) made an appeal for opinions on drafted revisions to the Guidelines for Consumer Protection Rules for the Telecommunications Business Act and the Notice based on Article 22-2-9 No. 2 and No. 3 of the Regulations for Enforcement of the Telecommunications Business Act (MIC No. 153 of 2016) from Wednesday, November 11 through December 16, 2020, and received four opinions.
Accordingly, MIC has decided to open the opinions to the public, along with MIC’s view on the opinions.

1. Background

The Working Group on Verification of Competition Rules under MIC’s Meeting for Telecommunications Market Validation released issued a document entitled 2020 Report on Verification of Competition Rules on Tuesday, October 27, 2020. Based on the report, a revision to the Guidelines for Implementing Mobile Number Portability for Mobile Phones and PHS (May 2020) was drafted to improve the usage environment of mobile number portability (MNP). In response to the content of the revision, MIC has been planning to partially revise the Guidelines for Consumer Protection Rules for the Telecommunications Business Act (March 2020) and the Notice based on Article 22-2-9 No. 2 and No. 3 of the Regulations for Enforcement of the Telecommunications Business Act (MIC No. 153 of 2016). Accordingly, MIC drafted the revisions to the Guidelines and Notice and made this appeal for opinions on the drafts.

2. Result of appeal for opinions and release of the revised Guidelines

The published material is in Japanese only.

3. Future plans

The operation of the Guidelines and the enforcement of the Notice are both scheduled for April 1, 2021.