Telecommunications

December 2003

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. has developed an optical fiber that can be bent nearly 90 degrees without cutting off the signal. Conventional optical fibers cannot be bent sharply without losing the signal. This poses time-consuming problems, particularly when installing circuits indoors. The newly developed fiber makes installation simpler without diminishing signal quality. It should be commercially available as early as fiscal 2004. The core of the new 0.1mm fiber has multiple holes that effectively refract the light signal, enabling smooth transmission even if the fiber is bent. The key to the new NTT development is its method of making the holes of consistent size. (December 18, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun)

NTT East is likely to ignore warning by Fair Trade Commission (FTC) over fiber-optic fees. NTT East rejected a warning from FTC over its optical broadband Internet services. The move paves the way for a legal battle over the Commission claim that NTT East unfairly lowered fees for fiver-optic broadband Internet services aimed at blocking other carriers' entry into the market. NTT has already established large-scale communications infrastructure across Japan, necessitating smaller competitors to lease its network when entering the market. FTC will bring the matter before the Tokyo High Court. The Commission claimed that NTT East unfairly cut the monthly fee for its B Flet's broadband Internet service for household from Y9,000 to Y4,500. The reduced fee was lower than the Y5,074 that NTT East charged other carriers for leasing its fiber-optic cables to provide their own Internet services. (December 16, AFP-Jiji, the Japan Times, Dow Jones, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun)

The Ministry of Telecommunications plans to abolish the system of charging Y72,000 by fiscal 2006, when consumers sign up for fixed-line telephone services. Such fees, which are used to expand and maintain telephone line networks, have totaled about Y4 trillion in all, but they will not be reimbursed; this would seriously impact the balance sheet of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp., the largest telephone operator in Japan, which is partly owned by the government. Eliminating the sign-up fee is expected to help NTT increase the number of applicants for fixed-line phone services, which has been continuously declining since fiscal 1997. More Japanese customers switch to cellular phone operators. The ministry plans to set up a panel, with representatives from consumer groups, to discuss the matter.　(December 9, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun)

The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) ordered NTT East Corp. to halt anticompetitive business practices tied to its home-use fiber-optic Internet access service. This is the first FTC order against the regional unit of NTT, although the FTC has issued NTT East with two warnings over its high-speed Internet access service. According to the FTC, NTT East in June 2002 set a monthly fee of Y4,500 for the planned B Flet's fiber-to-the-home broadband Internet access service, which allows up to 32 users to share one fiber optic line. This is well below the Y9,000 cost of the conventional service, where a single user occupies an entire line. Although the shared line service was never launched, NTT East reduced the fee for its own users to Y4,500 from Y9,000. Meanwhile, thew telecom firm charged rival telecom firms using its fiber-optic lines around Y5,000 per line, thus blocking the entry of newcomers in violation of the antimonopoly Law. NTT is required under a ministerial ordinance to lease its fiber-optic lines to rival companies at an inexpensive rate. Subscribers to NTT East's FTTH service at the end of October jumped 5.5-fold from a year before to around 756,000. The Public Management, Home Affairs, Post and Telecommunications Ministry instructed NTT East to correct situations in which it offers services that are different from those described in the terms of customer contracts. (December 5, Jiji-Press, the Japan Times)