The Information Technology and Communications Policy Forum of Japan held its
first in a series of press briefings about NTT deregulation and reform.

Full texts of the proposals are being made available on the Inforum Project
server (http://ifrm.glocom.ac.jp/ipf/pr1/index.html). Extensive background
materials are linked through our home pages.

An Agenda of the October 12 Press Conference follows.

Presentations and Speakers:

1. Seeking Systemic Reform of the Information Technology and Communications
Industries--Kotaro Suzumura (Hitotsubashi University)

2. Policy Proposal on Local Telephone Markets--Tsuruhiko Nanbu (Gakushuin
University)

3. Central Issues of Information Technology and Communications Policy--Shumpei
Kumon (International University of Japan) and Kazuhiko Nishi (Ascii Corporation)

Policy Proposals of October 12

Proposal #1-1. Employ the lessons of earlier telecommunications regulation for
designing a new systemic framework

Proposal #1-2. Give utmost attention to transparency and fairness in the
competitive framework in MPT regulations

Proposal #1-3. MPT's Telecommunications Council must emphasize openness,
transparency, and procedural fairness in its deliberations.

Proposal #2-1: Considering the future of wireless technology and the future
technological revolution involving both optic fiber and copper wire, the
perception that a bottleneck will develop among the common carriers is already a
relic of the past.

Proposal #2-2: When there is unceasing technological revolution in regulated
industries, regulation inevitably represses the opportunities for business
created by that revolution.

Proposal #3-1: The central issue in today's information technology and
communications policy is promoting the construction of telecommunications
infrastructure for the information society based upon an open data network
(ODN).

Proposal #3-2: The debate surrounding the information technology and
communications policy should focus at the level of the proposed modes and
policies towards construction of an infrastructure for information technology
and telecommunications. During the course of any debate conducted at the other
levels, we must keep in mind these issues of infrastructure.

Members below disagree on some specifics of proposals, but all support the
overall thrust of the points above. In short, their views differ from most talk
limited to telephony, and are quite critical of the MPT and NTT discussions to
date.

The current Policy Forum members (in kana order) are as follows:

Kazunori Ishiguro (University of Tokyo)
Ken-ichi Imai (Stanford University)
Masahiro Okuno (University of Tokyo)
Shumpei Kumon (International University of Japan) Jiro Kokuryo (Keio University)
Kotaro Suzumura (Hitotsubashi University) Tsuruhiko Nanbu (Gakushuin University)
Kazuhiko Nishi (Ascii Corporation)
Yukio Noguchi (Hitotsubashi University)
Yasuki Hamano (National Center for Multimedia Education) Taizo Yakushiji (Keio
University)
Shin Yoshimura (Internet Initiative Japan) Akinori Yonezawa (University of Tokyo

The Secretariat of the Information Technology and Communications Policy Forum of
Japan is in the Center for Global Communications (GLOCOM), and further questions
and materials may be address to me or our staff.
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Stephen J. Anderson
Associate Professor, Inforum Project Director Center for Global Communications
(GLOCOM) International University of Japan

Inforum Project http://ifrm.glocom.ac.jp/
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