ABSTRACT

By the beginning of 2007, growth in demand for broadband services in Japan had leveled off and gave way to a period of maturation. It was generally held some years ago that regulatory reform of Japan’s telecommunications industry lagged ten years behind that of the West, but the advanced precedents of Europe and the US have been completely absorbed, and quite unexpectedly Japan has emerged as the definitive global leader in the realm of broadband. Steering the proper course in formulating a beneficial competition policy, or antitrust policy, in Japan’s telecommunications industry is a difficult prospect indeed. The IP network is a best-effort network with no guarantee of bandwidth, so traffic inevitably becomes congested when there is not enough capacity. The next-generation IP network guarantees bandwidth, so the congestion problem is resolved by controlling charges and services. Competition policy is considered desirable because it is generally held that competition enhanced economic welfare in terms of efficiency.