Texting at midnight

[HOGEPH]

So what happens to the mobile networks around about midnight tonight when every pisshead starts texting mates, relations, passers by to wish them happy new year.

Must be interesting if you're trying to dial 999, or does that get preference?

[BliarOut]

Not a lot till about 5AM when they all start filtering through

[thinfourth2]

Phone set to off

Piece and quiet

Thanks for reminding me

[andy-xr]

thinfourth2 said:

Phone off

[Festive Ferg]

andy-xr said:

thinfourth2 said:

Phone off

Quite.
Phone and glasses both left in car to avoid damage in free-for-all at NYE Gig!!!
Happy New Year All!!

[agent006]

HOGEPH said:

Must be interesting if you're trying to dial 999, or does that get preference?

999 gets preference. If a transmitter is at capacity with calls and a 999 request comes in to it then someone will get booted off to allow the 999 to connect.

[tribbles]

We monitor mobile networks, and New Years Eve is a little different to every other day.

Normally, text messages will arrive within around 8 seconds - however, after about 23:58, you'll be lucky to receive them at all until 2am. And then they'll be quite delayed. It's not until around 5am that it returns back to normal.

(Note that MMS uses SMS as part of its delivery, so it's also affected quite badly).

Also, the average message length is around 50 characters - except on New Years, when it becomes 14 characters.

[V8mate]

Festive Ferg said:

andy-xr said:

thinfourth2 said:

Phone off

Quite.
Phone and glasses both left in car to avoid damage in free-for-all at NYE Gig!!!
Happy New Year All!!

Newtown Kings! Damn!

Have fun!

[Festive Ferg]

fk did I?
Sold Out long before last night, 5 bands and DJ sets, NTK on across Midnight. I was shattered by the time I got in.
However, when I got to my phone I had loads of texts and it couldn't have been much after 1.00am.

[plenty]

Texts use hardly any bandwidth, especially when compared with voice.

[allister88]

tribbles said:

We monitor mobile networks, and New Years Eve is a little different to every other day.

Normally, text messages will arrive within around 8 seconds - however, after about 23:58, you'll be lucky to receive them at all until 2am. And then they'll be quite delayed. It's not until around 5am that it returns back to normal.

(Note that MMS uses SMS as part of its delivery, so it's also affected quite badly).

Also, the average message length is around 50 characters - except on New Years, when it becomes 14 characters.

I love trivia like that!

Cheers!

[catmartin]

Is it also true that contract customers get priority over Payg when there's a big rush like on New Year's Eve?

[mrmr96]

catmartin said:

Is it also true that contract customers get priority over Payg when there's a big rush like on New Year's Eve?

Doubt it. Why should they?

[tribbles]

I should clarify something:

When we monitor SMS/MMS, we fail any messages that took longer than 3 minutes; they count as a fail - so you would probably receive them as an end user, but it could take quite a while (or you could get lucky).

Unfortunately, our kit needs to get on and do other testing, so they'll abort the current test with a "message didn't arrive" warning.

[pgilc1]

"Before the sun goes down, before the networks get too busy...."

OH fk OFF

[mrmr96]

pgilc1 said:

"Before the sun goes down, before the networks get too busy...."

OH fk OFF

wtf?

[pgilc1]

mrmr96 said:

pgilc1 said:

"Before the sun goes down, before the networks get too busy...."

OH fk OFF

wtf?

Maybe its not as common as i thought then - every year i get at least a handful of the message "before the sun goes down, before the networks get too busy and before i am incapable of using this phone, may i wish you a happy and prosperous 20XX"..

I find them cheesy about 5 years ago, now they're just annoying!!

[Jack Blag]

pgilc1 said:

mrmr96 said:

pgilc1 said:

"Before the sun goes down, before the networks get too busy...."

OH fk OFF

wtf?

Maybe its not as common as i thought then - every year i get at least a handful of the message "before the sun goes down, before the networks get too busy and before i am incapable of using this phone, may i wish you a happy and prosperous 20XX"..

I find them cheesy about 5 years ago, now they're just annoying!!

No, you are right... that is a pretty common start to a text message around New Year.