The plan to restructure Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp announced in March (CI No 3,125) has received approval from The Communications Committee of Japan’s upper House of Councilors, according to the Nikkei Daily News. Under the bill, drafted by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, NTT will be split into one private long-distance company and two regional companies, East NTT and West NTT, operating under a holding company which will handle research and development. The split is intended to take place in fiscal 1999. The committee also passed a bill allowing Kokusai Denshin Denwa Co, Japan’s largest international telecommunications firm, to enter the domestic telecom market.
