ABSTRACT
By the beginning of 2007, growth in demand for broadband services in Japan had leveled off and gave way to a period of maturation. It was generally held some years ago that regulatory reform of Japan’s telecommunications industry lagged ten years behind that of the West, but now the advanced precedents of Europe and the US have been completely absorbed, and quite unexpectedly Japan has emerged as the definitive global leader in the realm of broadband.1 There is no earlier precedent or experience in other countries that Japan can study, and indeed the world is closely watching to see the direction Japan will take. In the history of regulatory reform in Japan, this is something that has never occurred before. Will the current growth trend be sustained or will it falter? Steering the proper course in formulating a beneficial competition policy, or antitrust policy, in Japan’s telecommunications industry is a difficult prospect indeed.
