Japanese telecommunication reform and the standards setting process

The recently proposed separation of NTT into three companies would have caused changes in the ways in which telecommunication standards are set in Japan: (a) there would no longer have been a virtual monopsony market in telecommunication equipment in Japan, and no one firm would have dominated; (b) NTT's research labs would have been divided up and might no longer have been the primary source of Japanese standards research effort; (c) MPT's power relative to smaller firms would have been greater, allowing it a greater role in telecommunication standards strategy, This paper explores what some of the effects of such changes might have been. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.