December 23, 2022 Result of Solicitation of Opinions on Draft Revision to Guidelines for Promotion of Competition in the Telecommunications Business Field and Publication of the Guidelines

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) and the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) solicited opinions on a draft revision of the Guidelines for Promotion of Competition in the Telecommunications Business Field from Saturday, November 5 through Monday, December 5, 2022. As a result, 10 opinions were submitted. Accordingly, MIC and JFTC have decided to publish the submitted opinions and the two bodies’ own views on the opinions. Furthermore, considering the results of the opinions received, MIC and JFTC have decided to revise and publish the Guidelines for Promotion of Competition in the Telecommunications Business Field.

1. Result of solicitation of opinions

In November 2001, MIC and JFTC jointly formulated and published the Guidelines for Promotion of Competition in the Telecommunications Business Field (hereinafter, the "Joint Guidelines") with a view to promoting competition in the telecommunications sector, which prescribed their basic approaches to the Telecommunications Business Act (Act No. 86 of 1984) and the Antimonopoly Act (Act No. 54 of 1947), as well as stipulating behaviors considered problematic under the two acts. The two bodies have made repeated revisions to the Joint Guidelines since then.
MIC's Working Group on Verification of Competition Rules has evaluated and verified the effects of measures developed in accordance with the Act Partially Amending the Telecommunications Business Act (Act No. 5 of 2019. hereinafter the "Amendment Act"), which included provisions relating to the complete separation of communications charges and terminal charges, and the prohibition of excessive customer capturing, and also their impact on the mobile phone market. On September 22, 2022, MIC published the 2022 Report on Verification of Competition Rules.
To identify the state of competition in the mobile phone market after the Amendment Act entered into force and resolve any problems in competition policy, JFTC conducted a follow-up survey to the June 2018 fact-finding survey entitled "Concerning Competition Policy Issues in the Mobile Phone Market," and published a report on the follow-up survey on June 10, 2021.
In light of these reports, MIC and JFTC prepared a revised draft of the Joint Guidelines and solicited opinions on this draft from Saturday, November 5 through Monday, December 5, 2022, and received 10 opinions in response.

2. Guidelines

Considering the results of the opinions received, MIC and JFTC have revised the Guidelines for Promotion of Competition in the Telecommunications Business Field.

3. How to obtain reference information

MIC will make the reference information available for viewing and obtaining copies at the Tariff and Telecommunications Access Policy Division, Telecommunications Business Department, Telecommunications Bureau, MIC (10th Floor, MIC). MIC will also post the reference information on the public comment page of the e-Gov (https://www.e-gov.go.jp/en/ ).

• *
  The published materials are in Japanese only.