Following Japan’s revision of the controversial NTT Law, the operator’s rivals issued a joint statement underscoring their continued opposition to any move to abolish the act and called for more careful policy discussions.

The updated law removes requirements for state-owned NTT to disclose research results and allows non-Japanese to hold board positions. 

KDDI, SoftBank Corp and Rakuten Mobile committed to complying with the partial amendment of the act, which includes a provision stipulating “consideration should be given to including the abolition” of the amended act and that a time limit will be set, possibly as early as 2025.

The trio warned: “There are extremely strong concerns that what has been done could predetermine the future direction of the legal system and invite hasty debate.”

In August 2023, a Ministry for Internal Affairs and Communication special committee and the Liberal Democratic Party started work on a plan covering the possible abolition of the NTT act and privatisation. Its rivals first expressed opposition to scrapping the law in October. 

Japan’s Telecoms Business Act and the NTT Law was enacted in 1984 to reform the centralised telecoms framework of the public corporation.