NTT Docomo outage: calls, SMS and mobile data disrupted

NTT Docomo, Japan’s largest mobile carrier, has reported a large-scale outage. Its subscribers across the country ran into problems with calls, text messages and mobile internet access.

The first faults appeared around 12:00 local time on 5 November. Voice, SMS and data all failed at the same moment. Docomo confirmed the problem, is investigating what happened and is working to restore the services. The carrier has not yet named a cause.

In recent weeks Japan has seen reports of hacker attacks on companies and government bodies, along with data leaks that exposed tens of millions of people.

Large mobile outages have hit the country before. In July 2022, about 39 million subscribers of KDDI (brand au), one of Japan’s three major carriers, lost service. Restoration took more than two days.

Source: iXBT