September 17, 2021 Request for Efforts to Ensure Fair, Competitive Environment in Line with the Purpose of the Act on Partial Amendments to the Telecommunications Business Act

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) has requested NTT Docomo Inc. (headed by II Motoyuki, President and CEO), KDDI Corporation (headed by TAKAHASHI Makoto, President and CEO), Okinawa Cellular Telephone Company (headed by SUGA Takashi, Representative Director and President) and SoftBank Corp. (headed by MIYAKAWA Junichi, President and CEO) today to make efforts to ensure a fair, competitive environment in line with the purpose of the Act on Partial Amendments to the Telecommunications Business Act (Act No. 5 of 2019).

The purpose of the Telecommunications Business Act (Act No. 86 of 1984) is to ensure the smooth provision of telecommunications services and protect users’ interests by promoting fair competition in the telecommunications industry.
Two years have passed since the enforcement (October 1, 2019) of the Act on Partial Amendments to the Telecommunications Business Act (hereafter referred to as the “Revised Act”), which includes the complete separation of telecommunications charges and handset prices, and the correction of excessive market entrapment. In this connection, a Working Group on Verification of Competition Rules (chaired by NIIMI Ikufumi, Professor Emeritus at Meiji University) under the Meeting for Telecommunications Market Validation evaluated and verified the effects of the measures taken by the Revised Act and issued a document entitled “2021 Report on Verification of Competition Rules” (hereafter referred to as “Report 2021”) on September 16, 2021.
According to Report 2021, it is recognized that the effects of the Revised Act are becoming apparent to a certain extent as for the implementation status of the Revised Act. On the other hand, Report 2021 states that there are still many issues that need to be resolved to realize a fair, competitive environment, which has been our goal since before the enforcement of the Revised Act.
Therefore, MIC has today requested NTT Docomo Inc., KDDI Corporation, Okinawa Cellular Telephone Company, and SoftBank Corp. to implement measures to ensure a fair, competitive environment in line with the purpose of the Revised Act and to report on the status of improvements to date and their policies for future measures.