XL Axiata Ready To Anticipate Traffic Surge During Ramadan And Ahead Of Eid 2024

JAKARTA - The telecommunications company PT XL Axiata Tbk (XL Axiata) has prepared a reliable telecommunications network and data network ahead of Ramadan and ahead of Lebaran 2024 in anticipation of a potential spike in data usage traffic during the Eid holiday.

For this reason, his party has also conducted network tests that take place on the main route back to villages in various regions, including in the Sumatra region. XL Axiata management predicts that throughout the Eid holiday later, service traffic will increase by around 10-20 percent compared to normal days.

"The Lebaran moment always presents challenges for us as telecommunication operators and data because traffic always jumps quite significantly," said XL Axiata Director & Chief of Technology Officer, I Gede Darmayusa, in a statement in Jakarta, quoted from Antara, Saturday, March 30.

In addition to soaring, another challenge is the transfer of high-traffic locations to various scattered areas, especially in cities in Java and tourist locations.

For that, in addition to increasing capacity, we also have to have an appropriate traffic engineering strategy on the network so that congestion does not occur in various locations with high traffic.

Gede added, the increase in traffic in every Lebaran occurs because the Indonesian people are increasingly doing digital activities, including to stay in touch or Eid on holidays, as well as access various information and entertainment facilities.

He said, traffic has slowly increased by an average of up to 5 percent throughout Ramadan compared to traffic on weekdays, it is predicted that traffic will continue to increase to reach between 10 percent 15 percent when entering during the Eid holiday period, until the peak can reach around 20 percent.

In addition to increasing capacity, other anticipatory steps are in the form of network optimization by looking at the possibility of movement of community mobility or customers during the Eid holiday. For that purpose, a number of areas that are usually homecoming and tourism destinations will be a special concern, especially on the island of Java.

"The company ensures that most of the main homecoming routes have been served with the LTE 4G quality data network," said Gede.

He added that his party has around 59 4G BTS along the Trans Sumatra Toll Road in Palembang Lampung, one of the most crowded main sections in Sumatra and is the main homecoming route for Lebaran. Recently, along the toll road that connects South Sumatra with Lampung and also towards Java, there were an addition of about 10 4G BTS in the Ogan Komering Ilir and South Lampung areas. In addition, XL Axiata has also increased its capacity in 195 BTS located in South Lampung, Central Lampung, Ogan Ilir, Ogan Komering Ilir, Pesawaran, West Tulang Bawang, and Palembang Regencies.

In the last two years, there has been a 54 percent increase in traffic on the Palembang Lampung Toll Road with a total length of 373 km. In addition to the Trans Sumatra and Palembang and Lampung Toll Roads, XL Axiata has also added BTS in a number of other Trans Sumatra Toll Road sections, including new sections.

Strengthening network infrastructure includes optimizing, increasing network capacity, measuring customer experience as well as XL Axiata carried out along main routes on the island of Java, both toll roads and non-toll roads, as well as along the railway line, by preparing a network with a capacity of 2-3 times greater than during normal days.

Currently, a total of more than 2,800 4G BTS supports services along the 979 km Trans Java Toll Road.

Special locations that become crowded places every time a long holiday period arrives also do not escape attention. In addition to tourist sites, as well as shopping centers, passenger departure areas for both land, air, and sea modes.

Currently XL Axiata has more than 57 million subscribers, and is reinforced with more than 160 thousand BTS, with a majority of 4G BTS, as well as an optical fiber backbone network that spans more than 159 thousand km, supporting data networks spread across most of the vast archipelago of Indonesia.

XL Axiata also continues to invest in fiber networks, transmission, backhaul, network modernization, and various other network upgrades to improve network stability, capacity, and quality of data services in line with the continued increase in data service traffic.