Major Japanese mobile carrier KDDI has announced a compensation plan for millions of users affected by nationwide network disruptions earlier this month. The incident was one of the largest of its kind in Japanese history.

KDDI president Takahashi Makoto told reporters on Friday the company would pay 200 yen, or about one dollar and 50 cents, to nearly 36 million users.

The firm will also refund 2.7 million customers who were unable to use its services continuously for 24 hours or longer, in accordance with its service contract. The total compensation will be about 55 million dollars.

"As a telecom operator, we have a responsibility to provide stable service to support social infrastructure," Takahashi said. "We take this seriously."

The nationwide data communications disruption lasted 61 hours. The telecom firm says the problem was caused by an error that took place during maintenance work. This allowed voice call traffic to overwhelm the system, eventually affecting the company's entire network across Japan.

KDDI has pledged to develop a system that can detect rapid surges in access to its network and will review the recovery process to prevent massive service disruptions of this kind.