By SHIMPACHI YOSHIDA/ Senior Staff Writer
July 19, 2022 at 17:51 JST
Emergency calls made through the KDDI Corp. network during the carrier’s massive system failure earlier this month dropped by nearly half from the previous week, according to a police analysis of 110 call data.
Emergencies reported with calls placed through KDDI base stations decreased by about 10 percentage points, from 23.0 to 13.1 percent of all 110 calls, according to the National Police Agency.
The agency compiled the statistics from prefectural police data collected from across Japan.
It shows that 3,250 emergency calls were placed through KDDI lines on July 2, down 63.7 percent from the previous week. The number was 6,263 on July 3, a 25.1 percent decrease from a week earlier.
Overall, the 9,513 emergency calls placed through KDDI over the two-day period was down 45.1 percent from the previous weekend’s 17,325.
Emergency calls through KDDI lines accounted for 8.6 percent of all 110 calls on July 2, while they made up 18 percent on July 3.
The two-day total was 13.1 percent of the 72,465 total 110 calls. It dropped from a week ago, when KDDI’s weekend share was 23 percent of 75,262 calls.
The number of emergency calls from pay phones, however, was up 20.8 percent from a week earlier. There were 2,379 calls during the two days.
The disruption of KDDI’s wireless service wiped out service for a great deal of users, while others could still make calls but experienced other problems. Some people said their calls connected and they could carry on conversations, but they were difficult to hear.
Some said they had to visit police stations or police boxes in person, while others said they placed a call on a cellphone with a KDDI line to see if their calls could get through.
But police said that based on reports from that weekend, no one was seriously affected by the service disruption.
The National Police Agency recommends that people seeking emergency services try other lines, such as landlines or pay phones, in the event of another cellphone communication network failure.
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