Mobile service operator KDDI Corp. said Friday it plans to compensate millions of customers affected by a major service disruption that lasted several days earlier this month.
The damages will mainly cover "calls-only" customers who use cell phones unable to access mobile data, likely meaning they would mostly be elderly users. For users that do not qualify for damages, KDDI is considering compensating them with an "apology."
The provider of the "au" mobile service -- and Japan's second-largest mobile carrier by subscribers -- will officially make public its responses to affected customers during its earnings announcement slated for July 29.
The company has yet to announce how it will compensate its corporate customers affected by the multi-day outage, but it is believed arrangements will be made with them individually.
The outage beginning July 2 disrupted banking systems, the transmission of weather data, parcel deliveries and network-connected cars, among other things, and prevented users from dialing emergency numbers such as 110 or 119.
The mobile carrier is also planning to submit an accident report to the regulator, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, next week, detailing the causes behind the disruption as well as measures to prevent a similar incident from occurring again.
According to KDDI's terms and conditions, individual users are eligible for compensation if a service outage lasts 24 hours or longer.
The mobile carrier said the disruption in effect lasted around 61 hours, from the early hours of July 2 through the afternoon of July 4, when services were mostly restored.
The amount of damages a user is entitled to will depend on the basic fee of their mobile plan, and how they used their phone over the past six months, among other factors.
If a customer was signed up for a monthly calls-only plan for 1,265 yen ($9) and was unable to use their phone for two days, they would be qualified for 80 yen in damages, by way of simple calculation.
When fully restored on the afternoon of July 5, the service outage had lasted 86 hours and affected up to 39.15 million mobile connections, or around 60 percent of the company's contracts.
Related coverage:
KDDI mobile service fully restored, ending 86 hours of service disruptions
KDDI network almost recovered, compensation in focus for disruptions
