Telstra poster
A man and power lines are reflected in a Telstra poster adorning a public telephone in Sydney, Australia, August 13, 2015. Australian telecoms giant Telstra Corp Ltd on Thursday posted a 1 percent slide in full-year net profit, in line with expectations, and forecast modest earnings growth in the current year. Reuters/David Gray

This festive season, telecom giant Telstra is expecting more network traffic than in 2014. It has predicted that Australians are going to share almost double the amount of photos and videos on social media platforms in Christmas 2015.

According to the prediction of the company, around 900,000 GB of data will be downloaded on Christmas day, which is twice the record traffic of the same time in 2014. At the year-end festive occasions, the number of text messages will also increase, with a record number of 58 million messages expected to be sent.

Telstra’s Wireless Network Engineering Director Channa Seneviratne said that social media platforms – Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat – have made sharing Christmas texts and visuals easier for Australians of all age groups. “The explosion in mobile usage and the increasing access to high-speed 4G technology have created more ways for people to connect during the holidays,” Seneviratne stated .

“The amount of data we predict to be downloaded is the equivalent of 800,000 hours of HD video in one day, which is fair load for the network to carry.”

Mobile phone calls are expected to rise by 10 percent compared to that of 2014, including almost 35 million calls to be made around the country. International calls via Telstra network will also see an increase with New Zealand, the UK and the USA being the most preferred destinations for international calling.

Telstra did not forget to remind its eligible personal mobile customers on pre-paid and post-paid plans about Telstra Air, saying signing up for which will give them a chance to enjoy free unlimited data hotspots on the largest WiFi network.

Telstra Air hotspots are “available in thousands of neighbourhoods across Australia, including more than 100 coastal towns and retreats from Broome to Byron Bay.” The company also noted some important predictions on enhancement of usage of its network across the nation.

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