(NTT) to implement a 10% cut in access charges new common carriers pay for using their phone networks, ministry officials said Friday.
The move follows the day's release of a new model to calculate access charges worked out by a study panel in the Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications Ministry.
According to the new model, adopting new criteria to calculate costs such as a longer durability period for facilities, access charges for telecom services offered by new common carriers to homes via local switching equipment of NTT East Corp.
The ministry will ask NTT East and NTT West to cut access charges by 10% after the Telecommunications Council, an advisory panel to the telecom minister, endorses the calculation model at its meeting in March, hoping to put lower charges into effect in fiscal 2002, the officials said.
It is uncertain whether lower access charges would immediately prompt new common carriers, such as KDDI Corp.