Rugby World Cup: get the message?

Mobile phone users clocked up 202,000 calls and 226,000 SMSs from Telstra Stadium at Saturday night's Rugby World Cup final.

Anthony Goonan, Telstra infrastructure services Rugby World Cup project director, told CRN that the telco had anticipated demand on the night would be around 200,000 mobile calls.

Goonan said Saturday was the highest concentration of mobile calls in its history, and bigger than either the Olympics or this year's Rugby World Cup opening ceremony.

'Three year's on [from the Olympics] there are a greater number of people using their mobile phones, there was the weather, and the extended time of the game - all of those factors combined to give us this record usage,' he said.

The final saw 202,000 mobile calls made and received, 226,000 SMSs sent, and 20,000 picture messages sent. In particular, Goonan said that the number of picture messages sent was interesting because it was a large number for such a new technology.

To cope with the demand at the final, Goonan said that in all of the venues Telstra had increased the mobile phone network capacity to cater for the high calling rates.

Over the duration of this year's Rugby World Cup, two million mobile calls were sent and received and more than 1.5 million from the venues, according to a Telstra statement.