Japan’s Ministry of Posts & Telecommunications says that companies already offering value-added international telephone services will be freed to offer similar facsimile-based services as well in the near future: at present only the primary international carriers Kokusai Denshin Denwa Co, International Digital Communications and International Telecom Japan are permitted to offer such services, but the way is now open for secondary operators to rent lines from the primary carriers, and the move came about as a result of the regular telecommunications consultations between Japan and the UK, and initially the service will be available only to the UK, but will be extended in the near future to the US; facsimile transmission between the branches of Japanese multinationals has declined due to the use of private networks.
