The Japan News by The Yomiuri Shimbun
SoftBank outage prompts rethink of telecom business law
The Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry is considering making telecom equipment makers and software management companies subject to the telecommunications business law, in addition to the telecom service firms currently subject to it, in response to the large-scale disruption to SoftBank Corp.’s mobile phone network in December last year.
By doing so, the ministry’s administrative guidance in the event of disruption will also be given to telecom equipment makers and software management companies.
Although the large-scale outage in December was caused by a software glitch, the ministry was unable to directly order the company that managed the software to take measures to prevent similar incidents.
The ministry is considering revising the law as early as in 2020 after a study is conducted by a panel of experts. By revising the law, the ministry aims to develop a more stable telecommunication environment.
The existing law categorizes carriers with telecom facilities as telecom business operators. Besides SoftBank, NTT and KDDI are categorized as such.
During a large-scale disruption to telecom services, the ministry can give telecom business operators administrative guidance, including calling on them to report details about the cause of the problem. The ministry had believed that by placing telecom business operators under its supervision, it would be able to prevent flaws in telecom facilities, such as phone lines, exchanges and base stations.
That these measures are not sufficient to prevent disruption came to light when SoftBank Corp.’s mobile phone services were hit on Dec. 6 last year, causing about 30.6 million cases of disruption to phone calls and internet access.
The outages were caused by a technical error by Sweden’s leading telecom equipment maker Ericsson, which triggered software glitches in Ericsson-made equipment in exchanges at SoftBank’s operational bases in Tokyo and Osaka Prefecture. Switching equipment made by Ericsson simultaneously caused connection problems elsewhere in the world, making it difficult to say that SoftBank’s management was negligent.
However, the ministry was able to issue administrative guidance only to SoftBank.
Taking this into account, the ministry has concluded that it is necessary for companies that manage telecommunication equipment to be subject to the regulations of the law.
Besides Ericsson, companies including Chinese telecom giant Huawei, NEC Corp. and Fujitsu Ltd. could become subject to the law.
The law revision is also aimed at responding to future innovations in telecommunication technology, including the start of the next-generation communications standard, 5G.
As there is expected to be an increase in the number of cases in which renewal and management of software and networks are carried out remotely, the ministry intends to prepare thoroughly to guarantee a stable communications environment.