TOKYO, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- SoftBank, one of Japan's largest cellphone-service providers, suffered a major disruption in its services Thursday, ahead of an initial public offering (IPO) scheduled later this month.
Users of SoftBank cellphones have been unable to make calls, send text messages or use the internet for hours since 1:39 p.m. local time, and the issue was resolved around 6 p.m., according to the company.
The company said in a press release later that the incident was caused by software problems in some switching facilities supplied by Swedish telecoms giant Ericsson, and it will work with Ericsson to take thorough measures to prevent the incident from recurring.
The incident has drawn much attention as it occurred less than two weeks before the scheduled initial public offering for SoftBank Groups telco unit, SoftBank Corp, which is expected to be the largest in Japans history and to raise up to 2.6 trillion yen (23 billion U.S. dollars).
Tokyo-listed shares of SoftBank Group closed around 5 percent lower following the incident.