While Santa has been making a list and checking it twice, Optus has been busy ramping up its network in time for the festive season. Our networks team have provided some fun facts and figures for you to share whilst peeling that last prawn at the dinner table.
With many of us starting to wind down on what has been another busy year, the Optus Network team are full speed ahead, helping connect our customers with their loved ones over the Christmas period.
From the start of the Christmas shopping period to the end of school holidays, Optus has implemented special event parameters across the country to ensure major shopping centres, holiday hotspots and New Years destinations are ready to handle the significant increase in traffic over this period.
Christmas Day
Despite what we think would be a busy time of year to be calling loved ones, Christmas Day is actually one of the quietest times, with the Optus mobile network carrying 27 million calls on Christmas Day, almost half of the 50 million mobile calls the network handles on a typical business day.
It may be surprising, but Santas home of the North Pole isnt the most popular destination to call on Christmas Day; its India that takes the fruit cake as the most popular international Australian call destination, well ahead with more than 1.6 million fixed and mobile international call minutes, followed by the United Kingdom with 345,000 and New Zealand with 307,000.
New Years Eve
Soon after the candy canes have been moved into the discount aisle at the super market, Optus network will be ready to handle more than 65 million mobile calls and 97 million SMS messages throughout New Years Eve.
Optus Managing Director for Networks Dennis Wong said, The team puts in a tremendous amount of preparation in areas like Sydney Harbour to support more than 1.5 million people scattered around the foreshore on New Years Eve. With 12 months of planning, we are ramping up network capacity to optimise the network in high traffic areas like Southbank in Melbourne and Brisbane, Perths Kings Park, along the Torrens River in Adelaide and Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra.
Our network engineers are expecting the traditional mobile calls and SMS messages to decline gradually again this year with the use of data-based apps becoming more and more popular. The total number of mobile calls and SMS messages decreased by 4 percent and 6.5 percent respectively last year compared to a 15 percent increase in mobile data users, with the likes of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger becoming our most popular forms of communication across New Years Eve, said Mr Wong.
If you think the stroke of midnight is the most popular time to be using social media on your mobile, you were right! Last year saw SnapChat well ahead of any other application with the multimedia giant using 10.39 TB of data, compared to the next closest application WhatsApp with 755GB of data used.
Once the champagne corks have popped on New Years Eve, we wont be taking a break as Optus gears up for an exciting year ahead with the launch of our 5G Fixed Wireless Access services in early 2019, Mr Wong added.
Key 2017 Optus Network Statistics over the Festive Season
On Christmas Day, the Optus Network carried 27 million mobile, 23 million fixed and 5.2 million fixed and mobile international calls.
On Christmas Day 2017, there was a 1.8 percent decrease in the total number of mobile calls compared to Christmas Day 2016.
Over Christmas Day, the Optus network handled 48.7 million SMS messages, a 7.2 percent YOY decrease, most likely due to the increase in data application usage.
On Christmas Day, there was a significant build up in messages sent shortly after 6:00am which continued until 11:00am before traffic began to gradually decline to normal levels.
India was the most popular international destination for outbound calls during Christmas Day with 1.6 million fixed and mobile international call minutes, second was the United Kingdom with 345,000 and New Zealand sitting in third with 307,000.
There was a 12 percent increase in mobile data usage on Christmas Day, with Snapchat the most popular form of social media, well ahead of messaging applications WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
Over 97.3 million SMS messages and 65.6 million mobile calls were processed across New Years Eve and New Years Day.
The total number of mobile calls and SMS messages decreased by 4 percent and 6.5 percent respectively when compared to 2016/17.
New Years Eve mobile data usage increased 15.7 percent to 6.7 Million from 5.8 Million users the previous year.
12am on New Years Eve was the most popular time to use social media with SnapChat using 10.39 TB of data.
The Optus Network has seen mobile data consumptions increase by 55% this year and we expect traffic to grow to another 60% next year.
Note: On a typical business day the Optus network handles 51.3 million mobile calls and 51 million SMS messages.
