Jakarta, December 17th, 2020. To serve customers who will celebrate Christmas and New Year’s, XL Axiata has ensured network readiness to face possible traffic spikes in all services. In previous years, during the year-end holidays in which the two holidays were located, service traffic, especially data, always increased significantly. In the last two years, data traffic has increased by 15%. This year, even though it is still a pandemic condition and there is a reduction in public holidays, XL Axiata estimates that there will always be an increase in data traffic of around 10% compared to ordinary days.
XL Axiata’s Director of Technology, I Gede Darmayusa states, “To ensure the best service for our customers, we continue to prepare the network as it was in usual conditions before the pandemic. The network capacity we provide is 2x. We estimate that data traffic has the potential to increase even though people cannot celebrate Christmas and New Year freely. The public will continue to celebrate virtually, including Christians who will hold Christmas mass and stay in touch by streaming. Likewise, to fill the long holiday until the end of the year, apart from traveling, the wider public is likely to fill the long holiday period with the various digital activities because they have to limit going out of the house.”
The tourist destinations’ locations still received special attention from the XL Axiata team, along the main homecoming routes, especially the Trans Java and Sumatra toll roads, and the primary railways. For this reason, the XL Axiata team has carried out network tests through all of these transportation routes from November to December 2020 to ensure that all networks are ready. For toll roads, the network test is carried out on the Jakarta - Surabaya, Jakarta – Bandung, Surabaya – Malang, Surabaya – Probolinggo, Jakarta - Bakauheni, and Bakauheni – Palembang. Meanwhile, for the train line, testing was carried out on the Jakarta - Semarang - Surabaya, Jakarta – Yogyakarta – Surabaya, Surabaya – Banyuwangi, and Surabaya – Bandung. The network test results on the main transportation route show that the quality of the XL Axiata network is quite good, namely, above 95% have been served by 4G networks, and 93% have strong signals.
Other preparations are in the form of deploying no less than 30 mobile BTS (MBTS) units at various locations that require support for signal quality strengthening, especially in the regions of Sumatera, Jawa, Bali, and Lombok. These location points include, major transportation routes, tourist destination locations, crowd centers, bus terminals, train stations, and airports. In general, there are at least 104 tourist locations that are of concern to the XL Axiata team, which have the potential to increase traffic.
“Apart from tourist destinations and transportation routes, XL Axiata also pays full attention to the quality of the network in residential areas. However, during the pandemic, the traffic in residential areas was still high. This is indeed inseparable from the activities of customers and the public which are still carried out from the home to avoid Covid-19 exposure. We will work hard to maintain network performance so that customers can get the maximum XL Axiata service during the long holidays at the end of the year, both those who are on the trip and those who remain at home,” said I Gede Darmayusa.
During the crucial period, the XL Axiata team will continue to prepare to ensure all networks are safe. Monitoring will be carried out through the network monitoring center located at XL Axiata Tower directly in the field. Several anticipatory measures to deal with emergency conditions have also been prepared, considering that the rainfall has started to increase by the end of this year, causing floods and landslides in various areas. These anticipatory steps include preparing a generator set complete with fuel in disaster-prone areas along with a readiness to carry out engineering transfer of the network in the affected area to the existing network around it.
Customer Service Readiness
In order to serve customers who need support during the long holiday period, XL Axiata’s customer service team is also ready. Call center officers are available on standby 24 hours, via 817, 818, and 838 along digital-based services channels, through @myXLCare for Twitter and Facebook Page, live chat at www.xl.co.id, and email [email protected]. For Axis Card customers, go to @ask_AXIS for Twitter, live chat at www.axis.co.id, and email [email protected].
Customers can also get services, including various products at every XL Center spread across 76 cities throughout Indonesia. In several towns, XL Center also remains open on Christmas and New Year’s Day, especially in shopping centers or malls. In previous years, every long holiday, both Eid and the end of the year, the number of customers contacting the call center decreased compared to regular days. Of the total customers who contacted the call center, those who needed technical support, including those concerning network problems and other complaints, were around 61%, asking 39% for products.