September 22, 2022 Requests on Efforts for Securing Fair Competition Environment in Line with the Purport of the Act Partially Amending the Telecommunications Business Act

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) has today made a request to NTT Docomo Inc. (headed by II Motoyuki, President and CEO), KDDI Corporation (headed by TAKAHASHI Makoto, President and CEO), Okinawa Cellular Telephone Company (SUGA Takashi, Representative Director and President), SoftBank Corp. (headed by MIYAKAWA Junichi, President and CEO), and Rakuten Mobile, Inc. (headed by YAZAWA Shunsuke, Representative Director and President) on efforts to secure fair competition environment in line with the purport of the Act Partially Amending the Telecommunications Business Act (Act No. 5 of 2019).

The Telecommunications Business Act (Act No. 86 of 1984) specifies its purport as to ensure the smooth provision of telecommunications services, and the interests of the users of those services are protected, through promoting the fair competition of telecommunications business.
With three years passing from the enactment (on October 1, 2019) of the Act Partially Amending the Telecommunications Business Act (hereinafter referred to as the Amendment Act) including contents such as the complete separation of communications charges and terminal device charges and to rectify the excessive enclosure of customers, the Working Group on Verification of Competition Rules (chaired by NIIMI Ikufumi, Professor Emeritus at Meiji University) under the Meeting for Telecommunications Market Validation has evaluated and verified the effect of measures taken according to the Amendment Act, and compiled today the “2022 Report on Verification of Competition Rules.”
Based on this, MIC has today requested NTT Docomo Inc., KDDI Corporation, Okinawa Cellular Telephone Company, SoftBank Corp., and Rakuten Mobile, Inc. to implement efforts to secure fair competition environment in line with the purport of the Amendment Act, as well as to report the progress of efforts made so far and the policy of future efforts.

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