05
October
2021
|
12:15
Europe/Amsterdam

A lot of text messages during WhatsApp outage

Read the Dutch article below.

The failure of Facebook and WhatsApp resulted in the Netherlands switching en masse to texting and telephone traffic also increased due to the disruption. The number of SMS messages sent over the KPN network doubled from the start of the outage and, at the peak, at 10 pm, SMS traffic quadrupled compared to the same time a week earlier.

A normal SMS day follows a fairly stable course with increased activity during the day and a decrease throughout the evening. Exactly the opposite happened last night. After the start of the disruption to WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram, the number of texts sent increased significantly. The number of text messages did not decrease until after 10 pm. In addition, more calls were made last night in comparison with a regular Monday evening, but mobile data traffic remained stable.

First alternative
Despite the increased popularity of services such as WhatsApp in recent years, for many, text messaging is the first alternative in the event of a disruption. The sudden increase in SMS traffic did not cause any problems for the KPN network, almost all messages could be delivered successfully last night.