How many people turned to their mobile to wish their friends and family a Happy New Year last night? There are no confirmed figures as yet, but in the run-up to the New Year, Airwide Solutions said it was expecting an all-time peak in SMS volumes during the celebrations.
Volumes typically increase each year, but this year, mobile messaging infrastructure provider Airwide was predicting higher than average increases in SMS volumes, particularly in countries with developing mobile networks, such as Eastern Europe, North Africa and parts of Asia. In addition to this, the company said a number of its operator customers were making improvements in their messaging infrastructure, specifically to cope with the festive peaks.
For Sunday nights celebrations, the race was on around the world to reach the 200 million SMS milestone. The UK was 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 figures from the Netsize Guide. Airside said it was also expecting Poland, with its fast-growing mobile penetration and high number of expatriates, to top 200 million, and also China. Despite the fact that the main New Years celebration in China occurs later in the year, Airwide said it was expecting SMS volumes for the 31 December to 1 January celebrations in Beijing and Shanghai to each reach the same figure of 200 million. All of these, however, still lag behind the Philippines, where a typical day sees over 400 million messages sent.
One of the Airwide customers that has upgraded its messaging network to cope with the festive peaks is South African operator Cell C. Speaking in the run-up to the celebrations, Cell C Executive Head, Customer Services & Applications, Dennis Magaya, said:
“We are expecting record high message peaks this year as increasing numbers of people send greetings by SMS when they are out celebrating. We have made the appropriate investments in our messaging infrastructure accordingly and are confident that we will be able to handle the anticipated peak in traffic and continue to deliver a reliable service to our subscribers during the festive season.”
Jay Seaton, CMO of Airwide Solutions added:
“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. 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.