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Submitted by Mike Grenville on Sat, 23 Dec 2006 21:22 |
Operators are around the world are taking the New Year message surge seriously with a number of countries expected to join the 200 million club.
Volumes typically increase each year, but this year Airwide Solutions predicts higher than average increases in SMS volumes, particularly in countries with developing mobile networks, such as Eastern Europe, North Africa and parts of Asia.
Pole Jump
This year, the race is on around the world to reach the 200 million SMS message milestone. The U.K. is the most likely contender, with Airwide anticipating New Year celebration SMS volumes to easily exceed 200 million, up from 165 million last year (according to the Netsize Guide). However, Poland's fast growing mobile penetration and high number of expatriates now living in Western Europe contribute to expectations of 200 million text messages, up from 147 million last year.
Despite the main celebration in China being during Chinese New Year later in the year, Airwide expects SMS volumes for the 31st December to 1st January celebrations in Beijing and Shanghai to each reach the same figure of 200 million.
On a more modest level, but still topping previous growth, Australia could reach 30 million SMS messages as this year the country is poised to exceed the 100 percent mobile penetration mark. Similarly, Airwide is expecting a high of 50 million messages in Ireland and over 65 million in Switzerland. While text messaging has not historically been as popular as in other regions, the U.S. is now seeing dramatic growth, and the country could see a high of 125 million messages over the coming New Year's Eve celebrations.
Despite the impressive festive peaks in SMS volumes everywhere, the largest peak will no doubt be in the Philippines, where a typical day sees over 400 million messages sent.
Not Forgetting A2P
"Dramatic peaks in messaging traffic are becoming more frequent and more pronounced, not only due to the continued increase in popularity of SMS and other messaging types, but also because of increases in A2P and P2A traffic.†says Jay Seaton, CMO of Airwide Solutions. “While increased traffic provides great revenue potential for operators, it also presents the challenges of ensuring that the underlying infrastructure does not become congested while subscribers send these time-sensitive messages, and that the operators' networks and subscribers are protected from mobile fraud, spam and other security threats.â€
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