It had been pretty clear for a couple of months that the Japanese government had decided to bow to international pressure and award two licences to compete with Kokusai Denshin Denwa on international telecommunications from Japan: International Telecom Japan was invited to apply for a licence on Monday, and the Cable & Wireless-C Itoh International Digital Communications consortium expects a similar invitation any day; Cable & Wireless and Itoh will each now have 16.83% of IDC, and each will appoint one of six executive and one of eight non-executive directors; the consortium plans to invest $280m, and looks to initiate traffic to the UK, the US, West Germany and four other countries during its first year of operation – 1989.
