This year is said to be a big milestone for the mobile industry. For example, in terms of rate services, each company has announced a rate plan that allows domestic voice calls to be used at a flat rate, and new services such as carrier aggregation and VoLTE have started for the next generation of communication technology, LTE-Advanced. . While the activities of MVNO companies are becoming active, in the spring of 2015, the direction of unlocking SIM locks was announced, and several manufacturers have started selling SIM lock-free terminals for the general consumer market. It looks like it will be a year that will trigger a major shift in business in the mobile industry.
In the midst of this, NTT Docomo held a financial results briefing for the first half of fiscal 2014 (April to September 2014) held on October 31, and announced that it would offer a set discount with a fixed line called “Docomo Hikari.” ” will start in February 2015.
Docomo Hikari receives wholesale fiber-optic lines from NTT East and NTT West, and provides them in combination with NTT Docomo's services. To put it in an easy-to-understand manner in the mobile industry, NTT Docomo will become an MVNO that uses the fiber-optic lines of NTT East and NTT West, and will also provide fixed-line communication services using fiber-optic lines under the NTT Docomo brand. become.
KDDI and Okinawa Cellular have collaborated with FTTH and cable TV partners to provide "au Smart Value" since March 2012 as a set of fixed line and mobile phone services. ing. Softbank has also been offering "smartphone BB discount" by combining smartphones with Internet connection services such as "White BB" since the same period. Among them, au Smart Value is not only applicable to fixed-line communication services such as "au Hikari" provided by KDDI in the Kanto area, "au Hikari Chura" provided by Okinawa Cellular, but also Chubu Telecommunication's "Commufa Hikari", In addition to communication services provided by electric power companies such as K-Opticom's "eo Hikari", STNet's "Pikara", Energia Communications' "Mega Egg", and Kyushu Telecommunications Network's "BBIQ", Jupiter Telecommunications operates nationwide. It is possible to combine the CATV service "J: COM" that is being developed and the services of cable TV companies all over the country, and at the same time as realizing a tie-up that transcends the boundaries of service types and capital ties, It is said to have been the driving force behind KDDI's strong performance.
In response to this situation, since last year, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications' Information and Communications Council's ``2020-ICT Infrastructure Policy Special Committee'' has been discussing the ``competition policy review'', and what has emerged is that ``NTT DoCoMo is competing with other companies. Isn't it unfair that such a set discount with a fixed line cannot be realized?"
The flow around here is easy to understand if you refer to past articles, but to put it simply, NTT DoCoMo, which has a certain share in the market due to the so-called NTT Law and Article 30 of the Telecommunications Business Law and NTT East/NTT West are subject to regulations such as "not being able to operate in an integrated manner", and so far, it has been impossible to realize set discounts for fixed lines and mobile phone lines.
However, in addition to the fact that KDDI and Softbank offer such set discounts, a series of regulations are from the era when fixed line and mobile phone line services were clearly distinguished. There has been a lot of discussion about whether or not we should reconsider.
On October 8th, at the Basic Policy Committee of the 2020-ICT Base Policy Special Committee of the Information and Communications Council, based on the discussions so far, "The way information and communications policies should be for the 2020s" Report (Draft)” was compiled, and in response to this, NTT East/NTT West announced on October 16th, “Provision conditions for the“ Hikari Collaboration Model ”to provide wholesale fiber-optic lines. The flow is that NTT Docomo's "Docomo Hikari" was announced.