To make good on its goal to bring broadband to more households by 2015, the Japanese government is mulling a plan to parse out NTT's fiber business into a separate company. Currently, broadband only reaches 30 percent of Japanese homes.
According to a report in the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri, the Japanese government, which currently owns a 33.7 stake in NTT, wants to create a new company that would build, operate and then lease the broadband networks that are owned by NTT's regional units to competitive service providers.
Kazuhiro Haraguchi, Japan's minister of internal affairs and communications, said the government will introduce its broadband strategy by mid-May. NTT, however, would not comment on any proposed spinoff plan.
The timing of such a proposal comes when NTT has been trying to find a way to keep its competitive edge against a growing presence of mobile broadband operators and trying to keep its cable laying operations on schedule.
For more:
- Reuters has this article
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