System Glitch Hits Softbank Mobile's 3G Subscribers

TOKYO -(Dow Jones)- Softbank Mobile said a system glitch in its facilities disrupted communications for its third-generation mobile phones Wednesday evening, affecting up to 870,000 subscribers to the service, the Kyodo News Service reports.

The company noticed the problem shortly after 6 p.m. when an alarm went off at a network center in Tokyo. The glitch appeared to have developed in a part of the switching system but the company has not yet determined where, it said.

About five and a half hours later, the service restored normalcy following the replacement of the system's components, Softbank said.

The glitch mostly affected Softbank Mobile's 3G series of phones and those made and sold by a Japanese unit of Britain's Vodafone Plc which was bought by the Softbank Corp. group in 2006.

The problem disrupted the function of searching mobile phone positions registered in the switching system, it said.

The company had just fixed a different system disorder earlier in the day that troubled phone and e-mail communications for some 5,000 3G service subscribers in central Tokyo for about four and a half hours from shortly before 9 a.m.

Softbank Mobile said the two system problems are apparently not related.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

Posted to the site on 9th April 2008