⁍ Lowering cellphone charges has been among Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s policy priorities.
⁍ Government wants to realise charges in line with other nations, internal affairs minister says.
⁍ PM Suga has made carrier fee cuts a policy priority.
– Japan is trying to make it easier for consumers to switch mobile phone service providers. The country’s internal affairs ministry on Tuesday announced a plan to make it easier to switch carriers by offering easy-to-understand fee plans and services, as well as lowering the costs associated with doing so, Reuters reports. The ministry also wants to reduce fees to nothing for carrying over a cellphone number when switching providers. “We hope to quickly realize cellphone charges that are in line with other major nations,” Ryota Takeda, the country’s internal affairs and communications minister, told reporters. The country’s three biggest mobile network providers—NTT Docomo, KDDI, and SoftBank—are heavily protected, with the average cost of a new cellphone number in Japan estimated at about $29, per the Wall Street Journal. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who took office last month, has made competition in the market a priority. “If companies are strongly put under pressure by the government, they can’t help it but to move towards lowering fees,” a senior economist at Shinkin Central Bank Research Institute tells Reuters. “While it will lead to inflation pressures, I don’t think actual fee cuts will be large enough that consumers will feel they’re really benefiting from it.”
Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/japan-economy-takeda-mobile/update-1-japans-government-lays-out-plan-to-prod-carriers-to-cut-cellphone-charges-idUSL4N2HI0RY