Sure continues to play a critical role in providing connectivity for the community, with a 45% increase in home broadband traffic seen since the States of Guernsey announced the lockdown on 24 March.
With many islanders required to work or study from home and practice social distancing, Sure has reported a dramatic increase in home broadband traffic from an average usage of 51GB a week to 74GB a week per household. The community is also staying in touch over the phone regularly, with calls on mobile phones doubling during the lockdown period.
Sure has seen 1,100 customers apply for the free upgrade from the basic to standard home broadband service which has doubled customer speed from an average of 16Mbps to 34 Mbps until 30 June.
Despite a huge increase in demand and a dramatic change in home broadband consumption, Sure’s network has met the increased demand and continues to have spare capacity. Prior to the lockdown, peak hours for home broadband were between 5pm and 11pm as people returned from school and work and went online at home. Sure’s network usage data has revealed that the hours of high traffic volume have spread out across the day from 10am until 11pm. According to the data, the demand for home broadband has also increased in the evening during lockdown as islanders stay in touch with their loved ones using the internet instead of face-to-face contact and watch popular TV streaming services.
Justin Bellinger, chief executive at Sure Guernsey, said: “We're proud that Sure’s infrastructure has been able to easily absorb this increase in traffic and continues to help keep the community connected with the huge shift to working and studying from home.
“As the Bailiwick’s telecoms provider, we have introduced a number of measures to ensure that we can help support the community and stay resilient such as launching a home delivery service and a range of home schooling packages, doubling the number of advisors on our webchat customer support and increasing the support for those directly and indirectly impacted by the coronavirus pandemic through the Sure Community Foundation.”
Cyrille Joffre, chief operating officer at Sure, added: “Working and schooling from home has resulted in a significant increase in network traffic as well as fixed line and mobile voice calls. As the Bailiwicks’ broadband provider, our long term investment in our networks has allowed up to absorb the increase in demand, and will continue to. This traffic is monitored 24/7 by our Service Operations Centre’s team members working from home.
“I feel proud to work with such great colleagues working tirelessly to maintain critical telecom infrastructure across the communities we serve.”
Details of the new connectivity measures can be found on the Sure website on the Coronavirus page.