The Diet enacted a legal revision Friday aimed at lowering mobile phone fees and spurring competition in the country's saturated telecoms market.
Amid criticism that Japan's carriers charge too much compared with those in other countries, the bill passed by the Upper House to amend the telecommunications business law bans carriers from offering plans that cover both the price of a mobile phone and connection fees in one package.
For many years, carriers have discounted mobile device purchases in exchange for relatively high data fees — a practice that consumers and government officials have said makes it difficult to compare the fees charged by different firms.