Satellite-based digital TV broadcasts will begin in Japan in December, followed by other digital broadcast services. Digital services relayed by satellite will enter a new phase next summer when a new satellite is launched to the same position — 110° east longitude — as the broadcast satellite. Terrestrial digital TV broadcasts will begin in large cities in Japan in 2003. Cable TV services will also eventually shift to digital broadcasts.

As the first step of their collaboration, the three companies intend to develop a single fare collection systems for satellite-based broadcast and communication services in time for services that will use the new communication satellite next summer.

In addition, the companies will prepare copy-protection and fare-collection schemes that keep track of pay-per-view contents and customer activity, for example. The companies will work with the assumption that future set-top boxes in the home will have a storage capacity of at least 30 Gbytes.

The companies intend to propose the result of their joint work as drafts for standardization to the Association of Radio Industries and Business (Tokyo), an organization of broadcasters, manufacturers and communication carriers which prepares standards concerning radio wave usage in Japan.

Detail of the joint work haven't been ironed out , according to spokesmen of the three companies, but the companies said they want to work with a target that will enable them to introduce products compliant with the unified fare-collection scheme by next summer.