Influx of new subscribers briefly paralyzes Softbank

Americans, some of whom still have the nasty aftertaste in their mouths of the nightmarish number portability rollout here, must be feeling for their Japanese counterparts today. After flipping the switch this month to allow folks to take their numbers with them, it seems Softbank Mobile was the big winner -- sort of. In the process of accepting thousands of incoming applicants, their computer system buckled under the load, leaving the carrier all but paralyzed over the weekend and unable to accept sign-ups or cancellations. Fortunately, it looks like their IT folks were on the ball and everything's back to normal now (we hope).