KDDI Troubles Rankle Millions Of Mobile Phone Users In Japan

KDDI Corp., one of Japan's top three carriers, said Saturday, July 2, 2022, that its mobile customers had difficulty making calls and getting online for more than half a day, with network disruption affecting services ranging from banking and weather data transmission to parcel deliveries, according to Kyoto Shimbun.

Photo Insert: KDDI apologized and stated that it is still looking into the number of users who reported being inconvenienced.

The "au" mobile brand operator stated work to restore the networks is still ongoing after the outage began about 1:35 a.m., but no timetable for service recovery has been provided.

The problem, which the company blamed on a failure in its voice call system, has also impacted its low-cost UQ Mobile brand and its lower-priced "povo" wireless users, as well as other businesses that use KDDI's networks, according to Kyodo News.

KDDI apologized and stated that it is still looking into the number of users who reported being inconvenienced. Its infrastructure has over 62 million mobile subscriptions as of March, with individual contracts for the au, UQ Mobile, and povo brands accounting for approximately 31 million customers.

Given that a typhoon is approaching Okinawa and the Kyushu region in southwestern Japan, the communications ministry urged KDDI to restore its services as quickly as possible.

According to KDDI, the system breakdown caused access concentration and forced the business to regulate communications flow. Users of Rakuten Mobile Inc. and Jcom Co.'s low-cost mobile services have also been impacted because their services rely on KDDI lines.

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