Shenzhen residents made nearly 6 million long-distance calls from fixed-line phones between the Spring Festival Eve and the Lantern Festival, statistics from Shenzhen Telecom have revealed.

Shenzheners made 6 million long-distance calls during the holiday, spending more than 42 million minutes on the phone, nearly 20 percent more than the record set during the same period last year, yesterday's Daily Sunshine reported.

The phone conversation peak was recorded between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. Jan. 28, the Spring Festival Eve, and also between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. Jan. 29, the first day of the lunar New Year. More than 1 million long-distance phone calls were made during the two periods, a 50 percent increase over busy hours during normal days.

The most dialed city within Guangdong Province was Heyuan, followed by Meizhou and Jieyang, while the most dialed domestic province was Henan, followed by Sichuan and Chongqing Municipality.

The text messages sent via shihuatong, called Xiaolingtong or Little Smart in other cities, also hit a record with 2.5 million being sent. Shihuatong, a local wireless telephone service, launched a text message service Jan. 21 last year. The text messages sent by Shenzheners average 130,000 daily.

Editor: Yan