NTT DoCoMo Inc. said Wednesday it restored cellphone services in central Tokyo after services were interrupted for more than four hours, the fourth such incident in the past two months.
As many as 2.52 million users experienced glitches in voice and data communication from 8:26 a.m. to 1:08 p.m., the top wireless carrier said in a statement. The disruption was caused by a surge in wireless traffic on DoCoMo's switching equipment, the company said.
The technical problems may have been aggravated after East Japan Railway Co. stopped some train services for about 50 minutes from 9:05 a.m., prompting a wave of passengers to make calls or send text messages, DoCoMo spokesman Takuya Ori said.
DoCoMo also halted its messaging service for smartphones Dec. 20, Jan. 1 and Jan. 2.
Train services were halted after smoke was spotted on a section of the Yamanote Line's track and affected about 110,000 people, according to Toshihide Watanabe, a spokesman for JR East.