Sure’s top tips for home working

With more and more of us having to work or study from home, demand on the Bailiwick’s telecoms infrastructure is increasing dramatically.

The additional demand comes alongside the rise in multi-device households, which have become the new norm. Think about how many devices in your home are online now – it’s not just mobiles, laptops and games consoles anymore, but smart home systems and domestic appliances as well.

Add to that the fact that entire families across the Bailiwick will be spending a lot more time at home together than usual and your usage is certainly going to be above what you might expect it to be.

So what can you do to make the most of your broadband and ensure that you can enjoy the best connection possible?

  1. To get the best WiFi signal strength your router needs to be located away from any objects that might cause interference (such as Bluetooth speakers, games consoles and microwaves), preferably somewhere high up in the centre of your home. 
  2. Where possible, it helps to connect devices directly to your router via an Ethernet cable. This is a computer networking cable which should give you the fastest speeds possible and free up the WiFi capacity for other devices. 
  3. Connecting lots of devices to your router can eat into your WiFi bandwidth and affect the quality of your connection, so turn these off if you’re not using them as devices like tablets and smartphones often work in the background. If everyone is home, you may wish to consider limiting the number of devices in use at any one time.
  4. If you are currently using Sure’s basic broadband service, you could be eligible for a free upgrade to our standard free broadband service. This will double customer speed from an average of 16Mbps to 34 Mbps until 30 June. Visit sure.com/faster to check availability and apply online.
  5. Always password protect your WiFi to prevent unauthorised users from connecting to your network and slowing down your service. 
  6. Download or stream videos and TV shows in standard rather than high definition format and avoid large updates for online games until off-peak hours.
  7. If you are struggling to get WiFi coverage throughout your home you may benefit from a WiFi extender or Mesh WiFi System – these are available from Sure, and the cost can be spread over 24 months.

Sure’s network has the resilience to cope with significantly increased demand, and we have been preparing for the likelihood of more islanders working or studying from home, but your download speed could be affected at peak times due to the demand. We may need to consider applying restrictions to broadband services, for example restrict the availability of large updates for online games to off-peak hours only, however we will inform you before applying any type of restriction.

If you need any advice on your broadband service, please get in touch with us – by phone on 01481 700700 or by visiting Help & Support for information, to talk to the team via webchat or log a ticket using our Help pop up. As the Bailiwick’s broadband network provider we’re doing all we can to keep our island communities connected but we want to thank the States of Guernsey as we could not do this without their support and guidance during this challenging time.