Twice as many texters on Christmas day

O2 Ireland expects over six million text and picture messages to be sent over the O2 network on Christmas day this year, compared to the average daily three million.

Last year saw five million messages sent across the O2 network on Christmas day alone, an increase of 38% on Christmas Day 2001. New Year's Eve 2002 saw seven million messages sent to friends and family, an increase of 250% on the previous year.

"We expect the O2 network to carry over 42m messages between Christmas Eve and New Year's Day. In order to deal with this volume of activity, we have been investing an average weekly spend of €3.5m in our network to ensure consumers get the best possible service all year round and particularly during the holiday season," said Johanna Cassells of O2 Ireland.