May 28, 2021 Release of Report of Switching Facilitation Taskforce

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) made an appeal for opinions from Friday, April 2 through Thursday, May 6, 2021, on a draft report of the Switching Facilitation Taskforce (headed by Chief Investigator HAYASHI Shuya, Professor, Graduate School of Law, Nagoya University). As a result, 17 opinions were submitted.
Accordingly, MIC will open the report of the Switching Facilitation Task Force to the public with consideration of the submitted opinions and MIC’s views on the opinions.

Background

On October 27, 2020, MIC announced an action plan that summarized specific efforts to create a fair, competitive environment for the mobile market to reduce mobile phone charges.
Since the end of last year, mobile phone operators have announced new rate plans one after another. As price competition becomes more active, users will be able to experience the results of the competition. Therefore, it is important to create an environment where users can select and use those that meet their needs. The Switching Facilitation Taskforce, which was established under the Working Group (WG) on Verification of Competition Rules (headed by Chief Investigator NIIMI Ikufumi, Professor Emeritus at Meiji University), has been conducting intensive, specialized, and technical studies to facilitate transfers between carriers. This WG examines the impact of measures, such as the complete separation of communications charges and terminal charges in the mobile market and the prohibition of excessive customer capturing.
Recently, the Switching Facilitation Taskforce drafted the report that summarized the results of their studies, and MIC made an appeal for opinions from Friday, April 2 through Thursday, May 6, 2021, on the draft report and received 17 opinions. MIC has decided to open the report of the Switching Facilitation Task Force to the public with consideration of the submitted opinions and MIC’s views on the opinions.

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    The published material is in Japanese only.

Contact

For further information about this press release, please fill in the inquiry form and submit it to MIC on the website
https://www.soumu.go.jp/common/english_opinions.html

International Policy Division, Global Strategy Bureau, MIC

TEL: +81 3 5253 5920

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