China Mobile Records 490,000 Phone Calls During Olympic Ceremonies

A China Mobile spokesman has said that nearly half a million phone calls were made on its GSM network around the Olympic stadium during the opening and closing ceremonies. Almost 24,000 users made calls in and around the National Stadium, the Bird's Nest, during Sunday night's closing ceremony. The figure included about 20,000 international roaming service users.

During the August 8th opening ceremony, China Mobile registered more than 250,000 international roaming service users, said the spokesman.

The company says that it achieved a 100 percent connection rate and only 0.27 percent of calls were dropped by the network.

Overall, some 1.2 million China Mobile users watched the games on their mobile phones and 13 million users received Olympic newsletters.

The company also tested its TD-SCDMA network in Beijing and the other Olympic cities - including donating some 15,000 3G phones to Olympic officials.