The government plans to redistribute radio wave frequency bands to users of mobile phones and personal computers capable of wireless Internet surfing, government officials said Friday.
The redistribution is necessary because the number of unused bands available to new users is decreasing in line with the growing number of users of mobile phones and other wireless gadgets, the officials said.
The Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications Ministry will set up a study group to devise a set of policy recommendations to enable the redistribution, they said.
The ministry plans to draft an amendment to the Radio Law and submit it to the current regular session of the Diet, which ends mid-June, they said.
The tally of radio wave allotments had hit 72 million as of October, compared with 3.8 million in 1985.
The trend is expected to continue as mobile phone operators introduce the next generations of mobile services and a growing number of wireless telecom devices capable of accessing the Web hit the market.
One way to deal with the falling availability of frequencies is to maximize the effectiveness of the use of remaining bands, they said, adding sophisticated high technology can effectively create new free bands.
The ministry plans to track down frequencies that have been licensed by telecom services operators but left unused, they said.