|
|
Submitted by Mike Grenville on Fri, 02 Jan 2004 15:12 |
Reports are coming in from around the world of another big increase of New Year's Eve texting.
Australia
Telstra (representing 45% of the market) customers sent 16.2 million text messages on December 30 and 31, outstripping last year's record performance by two million messages.
Telstra said 13.1 million text messages were sent by its customers for the 24 hours from midday on New Year's Eve, with 1.7 million sent in the hour after the clock struck midnight. Telstra customers also sent a record 11.8 million text messages on Christmas Day, a 30 per cent increase on last year.
Telstra installed portable mobile base stations and increased mobile phone capacity increased at various celebration locations and holiday spots to cope with the peak demand.
A Telstra spokesman said some 62,000 picture messages had been sent over the two days, while 50,000 had been sent on Christmas Day.
Optus said 13.4 million text messages had been sent on its network between 3pm on December 31 until the same time the next day, while 81.6 million mobile phone calls had been made for the period.
Source: Herald Sun
Belgium
The three main Belgian mobile operators counted more than 22.65 million sms text messages on New Years Eve. Compared to a year ago this is an increase of 7 million messages. France Telcom daughter Mobistar, the number two on the Belgian market (6 million) saw the biggest growth with an increase of 25% .
Czech Republic
Czechs received a record number of 38.5 million SMS messages, with most of them arriving between 11 p.m. on Dec 31 and 1 a.m. on January 1.
A slight increase on last year although, a year-on-year comparison is difficult to make because some companies have included confirmatory SMS in the total number and also because the operators covered different periods of time in their calculations.
Clients of T-Mobile sent nearly 13 million SMS on New Year's Eve and in the first eight hours of Jan 1. The number was 8 pct higher than the year before, T-Mobile said.
Cesky mobil clients sent 6.4 million SMS between 7 a.m on Dec 31 and 7 a.m. on Jan 1. Last year, they sent 4.5 million SMS.
Clients of the largest Czech mobile operator, Eurotel, sent 13 million SMS on New Year's Eve and in the first hour of Jan 1. Including confirmatory SMS messages, the total number reached 19 million.
At the end of September, mobile operators' clients had 9.1 million mobile phones, meaning that there were 9 mobile phones per 10 Czechs. The operators expected the number to rise by 200,000 to 300,000 by the end of the year.
France
Across the country a total of 42.5 million messages - an increase of 30% on last year.
France Telecom's mobile unit Orange said 42.5 million text messages were sent on 1 January in France, a 30 % increase from the same day last year.
In the first hour of the New Year, 10.7 million text messages were sent as friends and families sent new year greetings.
Orange said an average of 11 million text messages were sent each day in 2003, with an average customer sending 19 messages per month in December, up from 11 in Dec 2001.
Source: IOL
Germany
The association of German telecommunication service providers, VATM says that this year's figure will rise well over the 31.2 billion SMS messages last year.
VATM spokesman Juergen Gruetzner said that during the turn of the year, SMS message volumes are expected to be six times as high as on normal days.
Greece
Greeks sent a total number of 35.9 million text messages on January 1st.
Vodafone subscribers sent 13.6 million messages, over twice as many as are sent on a normal day and 10 percent more than last year.. Some 3.1 million messages were sent before 2 a.m. CosmOTE clients followed at 13.2 million text messages. Telestet clocked 8 million messages, and Q-Telecom another 1.1 million.
There are over 10.8 million mobile phone connections in Greece and most people own at least one mobile phone although about one in four connections is inactive.
Source: Kathimerini
India
12.6 million messages were sent on the Hutch network on December 31 and January 1, against an average 2.5 million messages per day.
Norway
Norwegians sent nearly 14 million SMS messages via Telenor's mobile phone network on New Year's Eve.
With an average of up to 360 messages per second at the peak between 23:00 and midnight, some delays to message delivery.
Norway, with its population of 4.5 million, has one of the highest mobile phone densities in the world.
Source: a href="http://www.norwaypost.no/content.asp?cluster_id=24177&folder_id=9"> Aftenposten/Norway Post
Oman
Oman Telecommunications Company (Omantel) handled over 5.603 million messages during the New Year — from December 30 to January 1
1,103,667 messages on December 30
2,122,158 messages on December 31
2,378,801 messages on the first day of the New Year.
Source: Times of Oman
Portugal
The Portuguese unit of Vodafone Group PLC processed more than 36 million text messages over the New Year's holiday, while rival Optimus, a unit of conglomerate Sonae SGPS , processed more than 38 million. Portugal Telecom SA , which runs the third cellular operator TMN said it handled 72 million text messages over the New Year's holiday, 23% higher than the same period the previous year.
Source: Dow Jones Business News
South Africa
A total of 85 million SMS were sent "during the festive season" in South Africa.
Vodacom registered 51 million SMS during the Christmas period in 2003, compared with 39 million SMS in the previous festive season.
MTN Group recorded 24 million SMS and 30 million successful calls over the Christmas and New Year's day. MTN had increased its core SMS infrastructure capacity by about 30 percent in anticipation of call and SMS traffic over the festive season.
Cell C, the country's third cellular operator, reported 10.5 million SMS during the Christmas period into the New Year in its second festive season. This compares to 3.4 million SMS last year in its first festive season.
Source: Business Report
Switzerland
66.4 million messages were sent over the New Year holiday in Switzerland. This included 450,000 MMS. Customers of Switzerland's largest operator, Swisscom, sent the most messages over New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, totaling 32 million.
UAE (Dunai)
A trick message was circulating just before New Year's Eve that read "I think everything between you and me will end very soon. So let me say this now: Good luck to your life without me." It was only when you scolled down a few empty lines that you found out who it was from: "Sender: 2003."
UK
111 MILLION NEW YEAR GREETINGS SETS TEXT MESSAGE RECORD
The number of text messages sent in one day reached an all time high on New Year's Day 2004, as record numbers of people across the UK sent greetings to friends and relatives via text message, according to figures released today
by The Mobile Data Association (MDA.)
The total number of chargeable person-to-person text messages sent across UK GSM network operators O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone during the period between midnight on 31st December and midnight on 1st January, was 111
million, nearly twice the 2003 daily average and an 8% increase on the previous year.
Operators are becoming more adept at handling these traffic peaks and message delays in the minutes after midnight seem to be less each year in spite of the increase in message volumes.
|
