JAPAN Law and Practice Contributed by: Hiromi Hayashi, Daisuke Tsuta, Masaki Yukawa and Keiichi Bando, Mori Hamada & Matsumoto
The TBA requires a licence prior to offering tel - ecommunications services in Japan. There are basically two types of such licences under the TBA, namely:
The RWA restricts foreign investments in relation to obtaining a licence to use radio equipment. The following entities or parties are not eligible to hold the licence: • a person who is not a Japanese national; • a foreign government or its representative; • a foreign entity; and • a company or entity in which any of the afore - mentioned entities or persons is the execu - tive director, or holds ⅓ or more of the voting rights. However, there are exceptions to the foregoing restriction. For instance, if the purpose of the radio equipment is to operate a telecommuni - cations business, the foregoing restriction does not apply. The term of the licence is five years. There is also an annual fee for the use of radio frequencies. The amount of the licence application fee and the annual fee to use radio frequencies varies depending on the type of radio frequencies and the power of the antenna of the radio equipment. 6.2 Net Neutrality Regulations There are no rules that specifically ensure net - work neutrality. However, MIC released an Inter - im Report regarding network neutrality in April 2019. The Interim Report pointed out the impor - tance of setting rules as to whether bandwidth control, priority control and zero-rating services would be allowed, from the perspective that users must have fair access to the network. In that regard, a council composed of five asso - ciations (namely, the Japan Internet Providers Association, the Telecommunications Carriers Association, the Telecom Services Association, IPoE Council and the Japan Cable and Telecom - munications Association) revised their guidelines on packet-shaping in December 2019 in accord -
• a registration ( toroku ); and • a notification ( todokede ).
If a provider of a telecommunications business installs or owns (including in the form of an “inde - feasible right of use” or IRU) telecom circuits (eg, fibre-optic cables or coaxial cables) at certain levels, it must be a registration carrier. Other pro - viders who do not install such circuits (eg, ISPs) are basically required to only notify MIC prior to offering telecommunications services. A party seeking to provide a telecommunications service must submit application documents to MIC. In the case of a registration, it must also appoint a general manager for the telecommu - nication facilities ( denki tsushin setsubi toukatsu kanri sha ) or a chief telecommunications engi - neer ( denki tsushin shunin gijutsu sha ). A notifi - cation is a relatively straightforward procedure which would take only several days if all the necessary documents are complete. The filing fee for registration is JPY150,000, but no fee is necessary for filing a notification. There is no licence term or annual fee for either registration or notification. It is advisable to unofficially con - sult with MIC before filing an official application. Licences for Radio Stations As described in 4.1 Machine-to-Machine Com- munications, Communications Secrecy and Data Protection , a user of radio equipment must obtain a radio station licence under the RWA, with certain exceptions. Thus, if a provider of telecommunications services uses radio equip - ment for the services, it must obtain a licence not only under the TBA but also under the RWA.
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