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Japan to Grant Mobile Phone Carrier License to 3 Firms

Posted on: Tuesday, 8 November 2005, 18:00 CST

Tokyo, Nov. 8 (Jiji Press)--Japan's Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry has decided to grant mobile telephone carrier licenses to Softbank Corp. and two other firms, accepting newcomers for the first time in 12 years, informed sources said Tuesday.

The remaining two firms are broadband line wholesaler eAccess Ltd. and telecommunications venture firm IP Mobile Inc. The decision will be finalized after a meeting on Wednesday of the Radio Regulatory Council, which advises the communications miniter.

The ministry plans to open up two radio frequency bands of 1.7 gigahertz and 2 GHz for third-generation mobile phone services, which enable high-speed data communications. The ministry solicited applications for the licenses in late August and the three firms responded.

Softbank plans to use the 1.7-GHz band to offer data communications services in urban areas from fiscal 2006 and telephone services from late fiscal 2007.

Similar data communications services using the same band are planned by eAccess from 2007. The firm's phone services are seen to begin in the following year.

IP Mobile, for its part, plans to use the 2-GHz band to offer data communications services from October 2006.

The new entry is expected to fuel competition in Japan's already crowded mobile phone market, whose existing players include giant NTT DoCoMo Inc. .END

Source: Jiji Press English News Service

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