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Last night rumble in Victoria left Aussies running for their phones, says Telstra. The quake was the strongest earthquake in 109 years.
 Image credit: ABC |
But the difference, over 100 years on, was many reached for their phone and texted our friends and families.
There was a 400% increase in calls made in Victoria in the immediate period after 9.00pm, at the time the earthquake occurred Telstra confirmed.
High traffic volume on Telstra’s network gradually returned to normal levels at around 10.20pm, confirmed Telstra Director of Network, Anthony Goonan,
SMS messaging levels also more than doubled in the hour after the earthquake compared to normal. There was as many calls made in that 1 hour and 20 minutures than would be made on an average day, Telstra confirmed.
And it seems many hit the social networks also with many making an association with the quake and Lara Bingle’s new TV show on Ten (which this writer found highly entertaining).
The 5.3-magnitude quake could be felt from Gippsland right to the city of Melbourne and beyond and was said to last about 40 seconds.
So, rather than shout our heads off and run from the house, most Aussies prefer chatting to mates on the blower about their scary earth moving experience.
‘We have innovative technology to monitor calling patterns on our network to optimise performance and delivery of services. What it showed is the impact of the earthquake in a very short time span and how customers really reached for the phone to talk to people,” Mr Goonan said.
“We can look at the dynamic demand handled by Telstra’s Mobile Network by looking at numbers of calls made on network base station infrastructure and create maps to show the extent of the incident and how different areas talked about it.”
