Japanese telecom giant NTT East reported that its Internet connection services using fiber-optic communications and other systems were disrupted due to suspected equipment failure, affecting about 2.85 million users in 14 prefectures, a Kyodo News report said.
The Kyodo News report also said Internet protocol phone services using fiber optic lines also closed down in one of the largest Internet connection failures in Japan, which was reported this week.
NTT East, which suspects the disruption was the result of an equipment failure, said it has since identified the cause and launched repair work, the report said.
The service was fully resumed a day after, it said.
The affected areas are Hokkaido, Aomori, Fukushima, Yamagata, Iwate, Akita, Miyagi, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Niigata, Nagano and Yamanashi prefectures as well as parts of Tokyo excluding its 23 wards, the Kyodo News report added.
The scale of disruption was larger than the similar disruption in IP phone services using fiber optic lines reported last September, the report said.
NTT East said about 1.19 million fiber-optic communications users were affected, and said about 590,000 of them used IP phones, the report further said.