Although Japanese fees have dropped as a result of the entry of new carriers and foreign competitors into this market, they are still nearly twice the level in America. The fact remains, however, that the cost of communication here is considerably higher than in either the U.S. This heavy government involvement is premised on the belief that Japan’s “security and sovereignty” in communications services requires that the nation have a representative communications group that can compete favorably with powerful foreign rivals from the U.S. Business projects must be approved by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications. Foreign ownership is limited to not more than one-fifth of total equity. For example, the government owns more than one-third of the holding company. In addition to the near monopoly it enjoys in the local market, the NTT group is still heavily regulated even though it is a privatized entity. DoCoMo, whose i-mode cell phones dominate the world market, boasts over 4 trillion yen in annual sales, eclipsing Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom. It is estimated that group sales will top 10 trillion yen in fiscal 2000, more than three times the figure for KDDI, the nation’s second-largest communications company. The results of Japan’s IT experiment depend largely on how the communications giant behaves in the years ahead.Ĭurrently, the NTT group - owned by the NTT holding company, in which the government has a major interest - consists of four major units: two regional phone companies (NTT East Japan and NTT West Japan) that control more than 90 percent of the local network NTT DoCoMo, which has about 60 percent of the cell-phone market NTT Communications, which markets long-distance and international services and NTT Data Communications.
#JAMAICA PRIME MINISTER TELECOMMUNICATIONS FREE#
NTT, a veritable Goliath, stands in the way of free competition. So the inevitable question is: What should be done to make this country an Internet society? The question cannot be addressed without considering the NTT group, which holds an overwhelming position in the domestic-communications market.
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