Rakuten Mobile slapped with administrative guidance

Japan’s communications ministry gave administrative guidance to Rakuten Mobile Inc. Friday over a massive network disruption that occurred in September.

The ministry issued a strict reprimand to the Japanese wireless operator, saying the network disruption amounted to a “serious incident” under the telecommunications business law.

It called on the unit of e-commerce company Rakuten Group Inc. <4755> to thoroughly implement measures for preventing any repeat of the incident and to improve its messaging and outreach to users.

Rakuten Mobile was also ordered to report to the ministry by the end of next January concrete steps taken by the end of this month.

Koichi Takemura, director-general of the ministry’s Telecommunications Bureau, summoned Rakuten Mobile President Shunsuke Yazawa to hand him the guidance documents. Nippon