network traffic

As 2008 drew near and the ball was falling in Times Square millions of people on the east coast were sending their happy new year messages via text. In fact, so many texts were flying around that the networks were overloaded and, consequently, many messages arrived hours later or were dropped altogether. Basically the networks became like the turnpike at rush hour.

The same problem occurred on 9/11, during the 2003 blackout and during Katrina, and since those disasters the number of cell phone subscribers has nearly doubled from 128 million users in