Smartphone wielding football fans kept telcos on their toes on Saturday with almost half a million texts sent by Telstra customers from within the MCG during the AFL Grand Final.

The amount of data consumed by Telstra customers alone almost doubled that used during the 2012 Grand Final, rising from 185 gigabytes to 326.

Telstra customers made in excess of 100,000 voice calls, the telco told B&T, as fans kept family and friends informed on the game that was unfolding in front of them.

Telcos beefed up their coverage in the MCG, expecting mobile phone networks to struggle with the surge in demand.

Telstra told Fairfax last week that it had doubled its 4G network capacity in some areas of the stadium but warned that congestion was to be expected. Optus also upped its coverage.

Fans were definitely on their phones as Hawthorn took on Fremantle with more than 200,000 AFL related mentions hitting the web on September 28.

There were thousands of people filling the seats of the MCG and millions tuned into Seven’s broadcast of the AFL 2013 Grand Final.

But there were many fans – 208,602 to be precise – watching the game via social media and news sites.

Of the 200,000 plus online mentions 160,704 were driven by Twitter users.