MPT reportedly is considering slashing interconnection rates by half. Equally important, MPT licensed 13 companies to offer fixed telephone services to businesses and homes using a relatively new technology called wireless local loop. Using a wireless network to send voice and data directly to customers' premises, the 13 firms will be able to offer services at discounted rates since they do not have to lay expensive optical-fiber cables and will avoid using the NTT Group's local telephone network. It has both the financial and the technological resources to exploit this opportunity. Sony hopes to begin offering WLL services in six heavily populated prefectures by July 2000.
Foreign firms are another catalyst in the restructuring process.
The new IDC plans to focus much more on the burgeoning market for data communications and Internet services. MPT expects the data transmission part of the communications business to surpass the voice transmission segment in terms of total volume and revenues within five years. All major Japanese communications firms have targeted this market, as have other domestic and foreign firms as well. Marubeni Corp. and Global Crossing Ltd., for example, have formed Global Access Ltd. to offer international data transmission services via a fiber-optic cable system they are laying in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. It will be connected with a transpacific cable network that is scheduled to be operational in the first part of 2000.