Telstra also predicts that there will be 47 million calls from mobiles — up 15 per cent from last year — and close to 91 million text messages sent to family and friends.

Telstra said that the peak in texting starts just as we ring in the New Year.

Last year alone, more than 4.1 million text messages were sent between midnight and 1am.

For reference this is from 2017 and Australia has a population of ~24 million. So yes mobile networks do get stressed significantly on new years.