Tokyo: After a system failure last month that affected at least 12.9 million users and was described by the Communications Ministry as a " serious incident," the Japanese government issued an administrative order to NTT Docomo Inc. (NTT Docomo), the country's largest mobile carrier, on Friday.

According to sources, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications ordered NTT Docomo to prevent a recurrence of the incident, which resulted in many users nationwide being unable to use voice and data services at one point on October 14 due to a network failure caused by work on the carrier's network, and took around 29 hours for services to be fully restored.

Furthermore, the Ministry requested that the company improve its procedures for informing users, as when the carrier announced the restoration of services, some users were still unable to access the network and became confused.

According to the telecoms industry law, a breakdown that impacts more than 30,000 people for more than an hour is deemed a significant incident for carriers that handle emergency calls. The outage was caused by a fault on NTT Docomo's network of electronic payment equipment placed in taxis and vending machines, according to the company.

Earlier this month, the telecommunications behemoth submitted an incident report to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, detailing the causes and preventative steps.

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