More than 40 million text messages were sent by Irish mobile phone users on New Year's Eve, according to network providers Vodafone, Meteor and O2, writes Olivia Kelly
Delays of up to four hours for the delivery of messages were reported by some customers due to the huge volume of texts flooding the network immediately before and after midnight on Saturday.
More than two million texts were carried between 11pm and midnight on the Vodafone network alone, making it one of the busiest periods for texting all year.
Vodafone customers sent 16.9 million messages on New Year's Eve and 11.3 million on Christmas Day.
The Meteor network carried 53 million text messages over the entire Christmas period. Some 14 million of these were sent and received on New Year's Eve, with many customers availing of free "Meteor to Meteor" texts to family and friends on the same network, according to the company.
Just over 10 million text greetings were sent by O2 customers on New Year's Eve, an increase on last year's figures according to a spokeswoman.
"It's been a hugely busy period for us, the busiest of the year, and the whole Christmas period is likely to show an increase on last year.
" I think it reflects the growing popularity of text messaging and reinforces the fact that Irish people love to talk and love to text," she said.
Texts from both the Vodafone and O2 networks remained at 5 cent over the Christmas period.
