Text message traffic soars during holiday<\/p>\n
Sari P. Setiogi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
The number of text messages sent in Indonesia soared by up to
\n500 percent over the Idul Fitri holidays.<\/p>\n
\"Our text message traffic was up to five times higher than the
\nnormal level. We estimated earlier that it would only increase by
\nup to three times,\" cellular phone operator PT Excelcomindo
\nPratama's spokesman Fritz E. Simandjuntak told The Jakarta Post
\non Thursday.<\/p>\n
Excelcom now offers two services, Excelcom and Pro-XL for the
\npost-paid and prepaid sectors respectively.<\/p>\n
Texting is now a cheap, easy and quick alternative for people
\nwanting to send greetings to their relatives and friends. A text
\nmessage only costs between Rp 250 (0.3 U.S. cents) and Rp 350.<\/p>\n
\"The highest volume of traffic was on the eve of the 25th and
\non Nov. 25 itself, the first day of the Idul Fitri,\" said Fritz.<\/p>\n
He acknowledged there had been significant delays in delivery,
\nbut messages had never arrived later than one day. \"The traffic
\nwas almost back to normal on Tuesday afternoon,\" said Fritz.<\/p>\n
On a normal day, Excelcom's carries between eight and nine
\nmillion text messages.<\/p>\n
\"Things were worse as subscribers were sending messages at the
\nsame time, so there was piles (of messages) waiting to be
\ndelivered simultaneously,\" said Fritz.<\/p>\n
He predicted that traffic volumes would also be high during
\nthe upcoming Christmas and New Year holidays, \"but it will not be
\nas much as on Idul Fitri\".<\/p>\n
At the moment, Excelcom has about 2.7 million customers for
\nits post-paid and prepaid services.<\/p>\n
Separately, Faszri Sentosa, the sales and marketing director
\nof PT Indosat -- which issues Mentari, Matrix, Smart and Bright
\ncellular phone cards -- estimated that text message traffic would
\nreach its peak around the New Year, reaching an average of 25
\nmillion messages per day.<\/p>\n
\"However, we have increased our delivery capacity from 700
\nmessages per second to 1,200,\" Fadzri told the Post.<\/p>\n
During Idul Fitri, Indosat's SMS traffic increased to 16
\nmillion messages per day, compared to an average of 10 million on
\nnormal days.<\/p>\n
\"It was still less than our earlier estimate of 24 million per
\nday so everything was still under control,\" said Fadzri.<\/p>\n
However, the award for highest traffic levels has to go to
\nTelkomsel, the country's largest cellular phone service provider.<\/p>\n
With a total of almost 10 million subscribers across the
\ncountry, Telkomsel delivered about 55 million text messages on
\nTuesday.<\/p>\n
\"On Monday, 47 million messages had already been sent, a very
\nsignificant increase from the 15 million messages on normal
\ndays,\" the general manager of the company's sales and customer
\nservices for Eastern Indonesia, Agus P. Simorangkir, told the
\nPost.<\/p>\n
He said the company had anticipated the increased traffic
\nvolume by upping its delivery capacity to 4,000 messages per
\nsecond, giving it one of the largest capacities worldwide.<\/p>\n
The increase in texting came on the back of increasing
\nfamiliarity with the service on the part of the public, as well
\nas more texting options from the company, said Agus.<\/p>\n
\"This year, we offered SMS Pos, which enables subscribers to
\nsend greetings to relatives and friends who do not possess
\nhandsets. Greetings are delivered using the postal service.\"<\/p>\n
Commenting on the delays experienced by subscribers in East
\nJava as reported by Antara on Tuesday, Agus said this area was
\nthe main destination for those returning to their hometowns for
\nthe Idul Fitri holidays.<\/p>\n
\"So East Java experienced the highest text volumes over
\nLebaran and the radio network might well have become overloaded,\"
\nhe said.<\/p>\n
At the moment, there are over one million subscribers to
\nTelkomsel's Kartu HALO post-paid service, while Simpati, the
\ncompany's pre-paid service, has about 8.4 million customers
\nacross the country.<\/p>",
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
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