Twas the season to be merry. (News Analysis).(short message service use over Christmas season)

Wireless Asia, January, 2002 by Chan, Tony

The economic downturn may have dampened retail sales over the holiday season, but it provided a massive surge in SMS traffic across the networks of mobile operators across the region.

Millions of users celebrating Christmas and New Year shared their holiday cheer with family and friends through mobile phones, with texting a popular option.

The impact was particularly evident in Hong Kong, which only introduced inter-operator SMS in December. Over 700,000 messages were sent between networks on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day alone, according to Comverse, the company operating the inter-operator SMS gateway.

Rodney Yung, director of market development for Asia Pacific at Comverse, estimates that at least an equal number of messages were sent...