Information from mobile messaging specialists Airwide Solutions has revealed a 778.4% spike in Spanish text message traffic when the 2010 FIFA World Cup final ended on 11th July in South Africa.
In the five minutes before the football game between Spain and the Netherlands started, the number of text messages sent in Spain saw a 40.7% increase. SMS traffic then dropped by 46.9%, staying steady during the game before rising slightly (9.7%) during overtime. Finally, in the minutes following Spain's victory, text messaging traffic peaked at 778.4%.
Jay Seaton, Chief Marketing Officer at Airwide Solutions, said "Our statistics show the impact big sporting events like the World Cup have on mobile traffic. Dramatic peaks in messaging traffic are becoming more frequent and more pronounced, not only due to the continued increased use of SMS globally but also because of the popularity of text message based services such as social networking (for example Twitter), mobile banking and mobile advertising. 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."
