Acting Chief Technology Officer XL Axiata, I Gede Darmayusa, said "We have done special preparations since long beforehand. We are very serious about this because, aside from Eid Al-Fitr, the long year-end holiday season starting from Christmas to New Year's Eve has always been the period where traffic increases significantly. Last year, data traffic increased by around 30% compared to normal days. For this coming holiday, we predict an increase of traffic around 15% in data services, mostly contributed by video/ music streaming services, instant messengers, games, and social media. Access to digital map such as Google Maps and Waze will probably increase as well."
Gede added that XL Axiata's network preparation efforts include arranging upstream internet traffic to Malaysia and Australia by 1,5 times, and utilizing 2 exchanges in Singapore and Australia. The team from XL Axiata has also identified at least 300 locations which are predicted to become the busiest points during holiday commute, such as airports, bus terminals, crossing ports, train stations, to rest areas along the Java and Sumatera toll roads. These also include tourist destinations, shopping centers, and places of worship, especially churches during Christmas celebration.
Based on traffic data from previous years, the XL Axiata team has also identified cities where traffic is expected to spike. In particular, those that are located along the main holiday commute route, such as Bandung, Cirebon, Semarang, Yogyakarta, to Surabaya and Malang, also Merak, Bandar Lampung, to Palembang along the Java to Sumatera route. In anticipation, XL Axiata is prepared to divert or split traffic if an area becomes crowded. This way, a traffic surge will not result in a congestion which could inconvenience the customers.Gede is optimistic that data service quality during the holiday season will remain exemplary and customers' needs will be fulfilled. Aside from special preparations for the holiday season, data network performance will benefit from the completed fiberization in hundreds of cities across numerous regions, including most of Java, and outside of Java.
"We have also prepared measures to anticipate unexpected disasters, such as flood, earthquake, and others, which may cut electrical power supply to BTS units. Our teams in the field will be standing by for 24 hours every day during the holiday season. We also have a team continuously monitoring network condition in areas of service of XL Axiata, through the XL Axiata service quality monitoring center - Customer Experience and Service Operation Center (CE&SOC) in the Jakarta head office."
The year-end holiday season last year saw significant increase in usage of data and telecommunication services. On average, traffic between December 23, 218 to January 2, 2019, was 83% higher than normal. As for types of service, the highest increase of 500% was recorded by instant messaging.
XL Axiata management noted that, for the past few years, the public have been very enthusiastic about the long holiday. Similar to the Lebaran (Eid Al-Fitr) holiday season, roads in Jakarta would appear empty, while routes leading out of the city become crowded. The network monitoring system would also show high movement of customers. As traffic of services decreases in Jakarta, numerous areas outside the capital experience significant increase.
XL Axiata currently has 55,5 million customers, served by more than 129,261 BTS, including more than 53,000 3G BTS and more than 39,000 4G BTS. XL Axiata keeps expanding its 4G LTE network, which now covers more than 410 municipalities/ regencies across Indonesia. The company also continues to invest in fiber optics, transmission, backhaul, network modernization, and other network upgrades to improve the stability and capacity of networks and the quality of data service as data traffic increases.