"This year, there was a fairly high increase, especially when compared to the previous year. There has been a difference since the pandemic. Now, people's movements are much more dynamic," said acting director general of post and information administration Ismail at a virtual press conference on Monday.
The ministry has estimated that telecommunication traffic in Indonesia will increase by 3 to 17 percent compared to normal days.
Meanwhile, the increase in telecommunication traffic this year is expected to be in the range of 4 to 19 percent compared to the year-ago holiday period.
According to the ministry, there were no significant disturbances experienced on Christmas on Sunday.
"All telecommunication needs of the community can be served well by cellular operators. We hope that this preparation will continue until the end of the year," Ismail said.
To anticipate the increase in telecommunication traffic, cellular operators are increasing Internet network capacity for the Christmas and New Year holidays, according to information provided by Kominfo.
Telkomsel has increased Internet capacity from 8.812 GB per second to 11.052 GB per second for this year’s holidays.
Meanwhile, Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison has increased its Internet network capacity from 5.4 GB per second to 7.2 GB per second.
XL Axiata has increased it to up to 6GB per second and Smartfren has increased the network capacity from 3.48 Gbps to 4.35 Gbps.
Cellular operators have also optimized network quality and capacity at several locations that have the potential to be crowded, such as homecoming routes, shopping centers, tourist attractions, and places of worship.
Residential areas are also expected to become areas with significantly high usage of telecommunication services.
To meet Internet needs, cellular operators have also added mobile base transceiver stations (BTS) at several busy areas such as rest areas on toll roads and tourist attractions.
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Translator: Natisha Andarningtyas, Katriana
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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