News DOCOMO Releases Contents of Countermeasures for Communication Outages in October, Revising "Recovery" Expressions

Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications announcement

On December 27th, NTT DoCoMo released the guidance received from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications regarding the communication failures that occurred on October 14th and 15th. [Image] DOCOMO's announcement The content of the guidance covers five matters, and measures to prevent recurrence are also disclosed.

Problems in location information server switching work

On October 14, the specifications of the new and old equipment were fully considered in the location information server switching work used by the IoT service. The reason for this was that it had not been completed and that there was a discrepancy between the switchover contractor and DoCoMo regarding the switchback work. Regarding the lack of consideration of the specifications, we will update the software that caused the switchback to fill the gap between the old and new equipment. This work was completed in December. Differences in specifications discovered by comparing the old and new equipment will be addressed by updating the software by January 2022. By performing the normality test that was performed on the old equipment on the new equipment, we will prevent the recurrence of the problem. The normality test will use remote testing tools and will be comprehensively tested. Regarding the discrepancies in the work content with the contractor, we agreed to clarify the work procedures and division of roles on both sides, and to reflect the agreed details in the procedure manual. It is said that the reflected procedure manual will confirm that there are no discrepancies on both sides, and will work to prevent recurrence. For the switchback work, a new check sheet will be created for final confirmation. In conjunction with this, we will work to strengthen cooperation with outsourcing contractors and external parties.

Advance evaluation of the impact on the services provided

　In order to properly provide mobile phone communication services, we will consider the specifications of the new and old equipment and the impact on services in the event of a malfunction during the switching work. It was decided to evaluate and prepare in advance. In the event of a problem not described in the procedure manual, the final judgment time for the switchback work will be set, and will be incorporated into the check sheet before the construction is carried out. In addition, if there are reports from users one after another or if users are affected, we will immediately switch back. In the future, when performing switching work, we will comprehensively check the specifications of the new and old equipment to prevent problems from occurring. When performing service switching work related to roaming, in addition to the test on the Docomo communication network, we will conduct a test that takes into account the difference between overseas operators in the roaming out service. In addition, we confirmed that the specification confirmation with the manufacturing development vendor is a process that does not cause specification differences. This will also be improved by checking the specifications of the equipment.