More than a billion short messages are estimated to have been exchanged by over 200 million mobile subscribers in India on first two days of 2008, wishing New Year. Many subscribers chose to send their greetings even 2 or 3 days in advance, and there by helped reduce congestion. At an average Re 1 per message, the SMSs mean a Rs 100 crore windfall for the operators!
while most telecom networks have the capacity to handle even a 200-per cent increase from the normal day peak-hour traffic, networks record a 300-per cent increase. Therefore, subscribers continued to face a clogged network across the country. While some complained of receiving the same message from the same contact more than twice, others said messages sent took more than half a day to reach the destinations. And those trying to talk to their friends at midnight found that the calls were just not going through.
The operators said the problem was not unique to India as cellular service providers across the world face a congested network on New Year eve. In 2007, authorities in some countries such as Spain, advised their mobile consumers to send their greetings in advance or use e-mail instead.
According to TRAI, the average number of SMS being sent per subscriber is 31 per month.
[via hindu]
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