Japan Goverment to Shelve Abolishment of NTT Law; Revisions to Drop Requirement for Uniform Landline Services

The Yomiuri Shimbun

2:00 JST, March 6, 2025

The government’s planned abolishment of the law regulating NTT Corp. will be postponed, according to the outline of draft bills to revise that and other legislation.

While reviewing NTT’s obligation to uniformly provide landline telephone services nationwide, the government plans for the time being to maintain major restrictions stipulated in the law, such as the requirement that the government hold at least one-third of NTT’s shares.

It plans to submit the draft bills to the Diet by the end of this month, after presenting them to a meeting of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

The laws to be revised are the NTT Law and the Telecommunications Business Law, the latter of which regulates the entire telecommunications industry. According to the outline, the obligation imposed on NTT to uniformly provide landline telephone services nationwide will be deleted from the NTT Law.

The government plans to newly stipulate in the Telecommunications Business Law that NTT is obliged to provide telecommunication services in areas where no other providers are available. Telephone and broadband services are expected to be among the required services.

In 2023, the LDP disclosed a set of proposals calling for the abolition of the NTT Law, and some members of the party still want the law scrapped. Therefore, the revised law is expected to state in a supplementary provision that necessary measures will be taken by examining what form the system should have, including the possible abolishment of the NTT Law, within three years after the enforcement of the revised law.

The revised bills are also expected to require NTT to obtain prior approval whenever it sells or transfers ownership of key telecommunications infrastructure, such as utility poles and tunnels.