Japan’s KDDI outage a ‘serious incident’
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Japan’s KDDI outage a ‘serious incident’

Osaka

The KDDI network outage from this past weekend should be classified as a “serious incident”, Yasushi Kaneko, Japan’s internal affairs and communications minister said on Sunday.

Users of KDDI Corp, Japan’s second biggest mobile operator, struggled to make calls after an outage affecting around 40 million people.

The massive network outage throughout the weekend had disrupted deliveries, weather reports and other services across the country but the company said that most of its services had been restored this morning.

The network failure reportedly happened while the switching system for voice calls was replaced during regular maintenance.

If the outage is deemed a serious incident, this could require the carrier to report details of the problem and the relevant preventive measures.

The Japanese government was quick to address the problem with Seji Kihara, deputy chief cabinet secretary telling reporters that he expects KDDI to “sincerely” consider compensation for possible damage claims from users.

Makoto Takahashi, KDDI’s president apologised for the incident but gave a positive outlook for the resumption of services.

This isn’t the first time a major operator has faced an outage in Japan. Last year NTT Docomo suffered a system failure and was issued with an administrative order to ensure it would not happen again.

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