NTT Corp. President Junichiro Miyazu on Friday reiterated his opposition to legislation proposed by the telecommunications ministry to tighten control on the telecom giant, ministry officials said.
During a meeting with Toranosuke Katayama, minister in charge of telecom affairs, Miyazu said that the legislation is unacceptable as it would impose new regulations on NTT DoCoMo Inc., NTT's mobile phone arm.
Miyazu said the legislation is tantamount to a denial of NTT's integrated group status as it envisages competition between group companies.
The proposed legislation to amend the telecom law and other related laws would empower the government to apply harsher regulations on the NTT group in order to allow other carriers to compete more efficiently with it.
The legislation would designate domestic service operators NTT East Corp., NTT West Corp. and NTT DoCoMo as "controlling enterprises" that should be subject to these rules. NTT is a holding company that has the three companies and long-distance and international carrier NTT Communications Corp. under its control.
The legislation has also invited opposition from the Liberal Democratic Party, on the grounds that it could undermine NTT's international competitiveness.
Katayama said the Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications Ministry still plans to submit the legislation to the Diet by the end of this month.
In a separate move, the government is unlikely to call for the dismantling of NTT's holding-company structure, according to a draft revealed on Thursday of a new three-year deregulation program to be adopted by the Cabinet later this month.