A telecom ministry panel on Friday finalized a report that calls on NTT's regional carriers to cut access charges by more than 10 percent.

The report was compiled by a study panel from the Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications Ministry. It calls on NTT East Corp. and NTT West Corp. to apply a new method of calculating access charges, which common carriers must pay to tap into the phone network.

The ministry on March 27 will ask the Telecommunications Council, an advisory panel to the telecom minister, to begin in-depth debate on the recommendations.

The new criteria that would be used to determine access charges assumes, among other things, that telecom facilities last longer and require less maintenance than what NTT currently estimates.

Under the plan, access charges for telecom services offered by new common carriers to homes via local switching equipment supplied by the two NTT operators would drop to 4.13 yen per three minutes from the 4.5 yen originally planned for fiscal 2002.

NTT and its regional operators are bitterly opposed to any cut in access charges as it would hit their earnings.

The study panel unveiled the new plan on Feb. 1 in order to garner views from various sectors. It has not made changes to the plan since then.

Japan and Washington agreed to a three-year cut of 22.5 percent in access charges in July 2000, after Washington complained about NTT's high access charges.

The two governments also agreed to review the calculation method in two years' time.