January 14, 2022 Results of Appeal for Opinions on Draft Ministerial Ordinance, etc. for Partial Revision to rules for Interconnection Tariff Relating to Category I Designated Telecommunications Facilities and Report from Information and Communications and Posts Administrative Council

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) recently sent an inquiry (Inquiry No. 3145 of November 19, 2021) to the Information and Communications Administrative and Postal Administrative Council on a draft ministerial ordinance. This draft was prepared to partially revise the rules for interconnection tariff relating to category I designated telecommunications facilities, and MIC made an appeal for opinions on the draft.
MIC has today received a report from the Council stating its approval as inquired. Accordingly, MIC will open the report, the submitted opinions, and MIC’s views on the opinions to the public.
MIC will promptly revise the rule for Interconnection Tariff Relating to Category I Designated Telecommunications Facilities based on this report and the results of the appeal for opinions.

1. Outline of the draft ministerial ordinance

Based on the report (September 1, 2021) on the ideal state of an interconnection system considering the stage of migration to IP networks from the Information and Communications Council, institutional development will be made to take the following measures. These measures are for the calculation method of the interconnection charges based on the long-run incremental cost method from fiscal 2022 onward.

• 1.
  Addition of provisions related to functions and the calculation method of interconnection charges in connection with the migration to IP networks, along with pertinent conditions
• 2.
  How to apply the long-run incremental cost model during the migration to IP networks, along with pertinent conditions
• 3.
  Handling of input values used for calculating interconnection charges based on the long-run incremental cost method
• 4.
  Handling of costs based on the number of lines (non-traffic sensitive (NTS) costs)
• 5.
  Handling of the volume of communications traffic used for calculating interconnection charges based on the long-run incremental cost method
• 6.
  Handling of East-West uniform interconnection charges
• 7.
  Development of other rules

2. Report and results of appeal for opinions

On November 19, 2021, MIC sent an inquiry on the draft ministerial ordinance, etc. to partially revision to the rule for interconnection tariff relating to category I designated telecommunications facilities. Today, MIC has received the report from the Council stating its approval as inquired. In addition, MIC made the appeal for opinions on the draft ministerial ordinance from November 20 through December 20, 2021, and received two opinions.

3. Future plans

With consideration of the report and the results of the appeal for opinions, MIC will promptly make institutional development.