Hundreds of thousands of South Africans congested telecommunications networks yesterday as they rushed to check on their family members in London after the series of blasts in the UK capital.
While some delays were reported, the networks coped with the increased traffic, report local telecoms service providers.
Telkom says its network successfully routed 500 000 calls to the UK between noon and 2pm yesterday, after news of the blasts first became known. This figure includes calls made through the mobile networks, whose calls are routed through Telkom infrastructure.
"No Telkom SA international infrastructure was affected by the blast," Telkom said in a statement.
Calls from MTN subscribers to the UK increased two-fold in the hours after the blasts, says Ravin Maharaj, MTN`s media relations manager. However, he says no difficulties in connecting were reported.
Cell C experienced an increase in network traffic that could be attributed to customers making calls to London.
"However, this has not impacted our service levels," says Nathi Sukazi, Cell C media relations manager. "Any difficulties that subscribers may have experienced in calling London are likely to be due to congestion reported by UK operators."
Vodacom could not be reached for comment before publication today.
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