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SaskTel is working to make sure everybody can get in touch with their loved ones on Christmas.

The Crown Corporation is expecting over 600,000 long-distance calls will be made on Christmas Day, with about 450,000 calls being made on landlines and 150,000 calls coming from cellphones. They also expect around eight million text messages will be sent.

"Our trends have obviously been going away from wireline long-distance and that's been decreasing, wireless long-distance has continued to increase, and text messaging has continued to increase exponentially year-over-year," said Michelle Englot, Director of External Communications for SaskTel. "We expect that roughly 40% of Christmas Day calls will be made to locations within the province, and there's about 54% per cent of call that are placed to other Canadian destinations outside of the province. Only about 6% of the calls go to the United States and other international locations."

Englot says while their network should handle the load, customers can avoid congestion by calling outside of their busy hours.

"Busy hours on Christmas Day are from 10:00am to 2:00pm, and then again from 7:00pm to 10:00pm," she added. "If you come across a fast busy tone, we suggest that you hang up and dial again in 15 seconds."

SaskTel also advises customers to verify their phone numbers in advance, and take time zones into consideration before calling.