Rakuten Mobile issued with Administrative Guidance over ‘serious’ network outage

Japan’s new fourth mobile operator Rakuten Mobile has received a slap on the wrist from the Japanese government which, issuing Administrative Guidance to the company, warned it not to repeat the ‘massive disruptions’ of its voice and data services that affected many of its customers in September this year. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) noted that the outages affected some 110,000 people in terms of voice call service failures and 1.3 million people were hit by the data transmission disruption, caused by a software malfunction in equipment at a data centre. The MIC has since inspected the data centre to ensure that corrective measures are being put in place, with Rakuten Mobile President Shunsuke Yazawa saying: ‘We solemnly accept the instruction and will thoroughly follow it on a companywide basis’.