Guidance given to KDDI, Inc. concerning Accident Prevention

1. Background

(1) Since April 2011, there have been five serious incidents (on April 30 and November 2, 2011, and on January 25, February 9 and February 11, 2012) relating to the mobile phone services provided by KDDI, Inc. (hereinafter, “KDDI”).

Of these incidents, those which occurred on April 30, 2011 and February 9, 2012 caused difficulties in the use of data communication by smart phones while there is a surge in the number of smart phone users.

(2) According to reports, etc. concerning these incidents, inability to use communications, etc. occurred due to faults including failure to switch to reserve equipment and failure of subscriber switches, transmission equipment and electrical power equipment, etc., and it is thought that these occurrences can be attributed to a lack of necessary and appropriate measures taken by KDDI to improve the reliability of its systems, etc.

(3) Since repeated occurrence of serious incidents such as these will cause great damage to the interests of users as well as to trust in communication services, appropriate measures are being sought.

2. Content of guidance

By means of a letter issued on February 15, 2012 under the name of the Director-General of the Telecommunications Bureau, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) has given guidance to KDDI, requesting that in line with the following items preventive measures, etc. are taken as a matter of urgency, and that actual results and future initiatives be reported back to the MIC no later than March 30 (Fri), 2012.

(1) Deployment of telecommunications equipment to provide appropriate support for increases in number of users and traffic, etc.

(2) Deployment of appropriate reserve equipment and construction of monitoring system in order to deal with occurrences of telecommunications equipment failure, etc.

(3) Prevention of congestion by means of overload experiments, etc.

(4) Appropriate support for users

3. Future initiatives

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) will continue to diligently provide necessary guidance and supervision in order to guarantee the stable provision of telecommunications services.