Two of Japan’s new generation telecommunications carriers born in the 1980s announced yesterday that they want to merge. The international carrier is International Telecom Japan Ltd and the domestic one is Japan Telecom Co Ltd, Japan’s third-biggest long- distance carrier. The former monopoly international carrier Kokusai Denshin Denwa Co had long served as a comfortable pre- retirement berth for superannuated Ministry of Posts & Telecommunications officials, and the whole ministry was thown into a ferment when Cable & Wireless Plc rallied Japanese industrial interests to form International Digital Communications Inc and lay its own Pacific cable, and International Telecom Japan was formed to lease lines from Kokusai Denshin and crimp the newcomer’s growth. Japan Telecom is number three in long- distance, and reckons it would be difficult to survive operating only long-distance services. The new grouping hopes to get a prime position in one of the three international one-stop shops – Concert, WorldPartners or Global One. The share swap merger will create a firm with annual sales of some $3.25bn.
