TOKYO -(Dow Jones)- The Japanese government said it will start accepting applications for new mobile phone service licenses from late August, a move that could intensify competition for current mobile phone service operators such as NTT DoCoMo Inc. (9437.TO).
The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said Wednesday it will provide licenses for the 1.7 gigahertz bandwidth to up to two operators and for the 2.0 gigahertz bandwidth to one operator.
Broadband service operator Softbank Corp. (9984.TO) and eAccess Ltd. (9427.TO) as well as other start-up firms will likely apply for the licenses.
NTT DoCoMo, KDDI Corp. (9433.TO) and Vodafone Group Plc. (VOD) are currently the major players in the Japanese mobile phone market.
The NTT group and KDDI are stumbling in the fixed-line phone market partly as Softbank and other start-up companies started offering phone services using Internet technologies with much lower charges such as Internet Protocol or IP phone services.
Participation by new operators may trigger similarly tough competition in the mobile phone market.
-By Yoshio Takahashi, Dow Jones Newswires; 813-5255-2929; yoshio.takahashi@dowjones.com
-Edited by Hugh Lawson
(END) Dow Jones Newswires"
Posted to the site on 28th July 2005
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/13586.php