Telecom operators earn big during Idul Fitri holiday

Cellular phone operators look certain to earn big due to a sharp increase in telecommunication traffic in calls, text messages and data transfer during the Idul Fitri holiday.

The country’s largest telecom operator PT Telkom Indonesia reported a 40 percent increase in voice traffic and a 20 percent hike in text message traffic across Central Java and Yogyakarta alone.

Telkomsel corporate communications manager for the Central Java and Yogyakarta region Dito Respati said Monday telecommunication traffic rose to 1.33 million calls per day from Sept. 8 to Sept. 10 from 960,000 on normal days. Text messages jumped to 84 million per day from a normal 70 million and data sharing increased to 2.6 Gigabytes per second from 1.8 Gigabytes per second.

The company data revealed that about 2 million subscribers visited Central Java and Yogyakarta during the holiday season. The incoming holidaymakers accounted for 30 percent of the company’s subscribers in the two provinces.

“We are pleased there have been no significant hassles in our efforts to deal with the increase in telecommunication traffic during the Idul Fitri holiday,” Dito told Antara state news agency.