Japanese telco KDDI is set to cut the cost of calls, and increase the cost of handsets. Diminishing the subsidy of handsets should, in principle, be a good thing for customers. It means they pay for what they get. That means that customers who make more calls do not subsidize customers more interested in how their handset looks than in how it works. However, with economic growth in Japan still struggling to gather momentum, some analysts have warned that reducing call costs may encourage a price war that would have a deflationary impact on the Japanese economy. So what is good for Japanese customers may end up being bad for Japan as a whole :(