Happy families?

THE threat of extinction is having a predictable effect on Japan's smaller telecoms companies: panic. The first concrete sign came on March 12th when it emerged that Japan Telecom, a long-distance carrier, will take over International Telecom Japan (ITJ), an international one, perhaps by October. The resulting carrier will have revenues of around ¥430 billion ($3.5 billion), making it Japan's third-largest, although it will still only be a fifteenth of the size of NTT. Indeed, the shadow of Japan's domestic telecoms behemoth, alongside the prospect of deregulation, hangs over the deal--and makes more such mergers inevitable.