Will the network be able to handle the volume of texts?

There’s obviously going to be a peak of texting, but we’re used to peaks at new year, Valentine’s Day and on big sporting occasions. We have seen peaks of 50 million texts sent at midnight on New Year’s Eve. O2 handles a billion texts a year, so while it will be a peak we will be equipped to deal with it.

Do you have any idea of how many texts you are expecting next week?

Not really. It was only announced yesterday so we’ll get a better idea as we get towards next week.

Has this method been used to allocate tickets in the past?

I think it would be fair to say that this would be the biggest event. We do do tickets for Party in the Park, not by text lottery but by selling tickets by text message. For the tsunami appeal people were able to donate by text message and we saw a high volume of text messages then.

Were there any problems with the text message system during Party in the Park and the tsunami appeal?

No, not at all, and there was so much SMS traffic on those days that we’re confident that it will all go smoothly next week.

How much will O2 be charging for each text message?

The whole £1.50 goes to charity. Then there will be a 10p charge that covers our costs.

So customers will be charged £1.60 for each text, and £1.50 of that will go to charity?

Yes.

Will the phone companies be involved in selecting the winners?

No, as far as I know we’re not handling that part of the process.

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