Japan Is Considering Spectrum Auctions...at Last

Many expect that the Democratic Party of Japan will win the election. They promised that they would "introduce spectrum auctions if appropriate" in their Policy Index.

The MIC (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications), which decided not to adopt the auction recently, is embarrassed. But they started a "study group" to consider the adoption of spectrum auctions. An official said that they would not resist if the ruling party decides to do.

However, it's uncertain whether the DPJ decides to do. Masamitsu Naito, the Chief of Policy Research Group for the ICT is an upper house member who was a Union leader of NTT. He is reluctant to implement the auction when he explained the policy. When I asked "Do you mean you are going to do the auction as minimal as possible?", he answered yes.

But the headquarter of the DPJ is more favorable about the auction, because they are attacked by the Liberal Democratic Party that the DPJ has no plan to compensate the huge spending for children and farmers. Spectrum auctions might generate more than 1 trillion yen, so they are considering the auctions seriously.

Now the prospect is unclear because NTT and KDDI are against the auctions, but Softbank is neutral. Foreign companies are very favorable, of course. Japan is slowly trying to catch up the US after 15 years...