A major communications failure at NTT West disrupted services in parts of western Japan on Tuesday afternoon, leaving users unable to make calls via fixed-line and internet protocol phones, including to emergency hotlines. The disruption began around 3:45 p.m. and was resolved about 4:35 p.m., hitting some 2.27 million contracted lines mainly in Kyoto and Osaka prefectures, the company said. NTT West posted a statement on its website apologizing for the problem. According to the firm, roughly 1.6 million lines in Osaka, 530,000 in Kyoto and 140,000 in Hyogo were subject to the outage. As one c...