Telecommunications chief Toranosuke Katayama on Friday urged the two regional carriers of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. to revise their plans to introduce a limited Internet service for fixed-line phones.
Katayama, the minister of public management, home affairs, posts and telecommunications, wants the carriers to iron out legal problems so that the service can be launched quickly.
The NTT law currently confines NTT East Corp. and NTT West Corp. to providing only regional phone service, but the two NTT subsidiaries nevertheless hope to start their L-mode service in the spring.
The Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications points out the service will involve communications between prefectures, which the firms are prohibited from offering under the NTT law.
"It's better to implement (the new service) early by making adjustments so that it can be done within the framework of the present law," Katayama told a press conference after a Cabinet meeting.
The new service, which is a fixed-line version of NTT DoCoMo Inc.'s i-mode, will allow users to access specially condensed Internet content.