Jakarta, 18th January 2018 – Telkomsel successfully served the communication needs of customers in the Christmas and New Year period. Telkomsel recorded data services payload reached 10.7 petabytes or increased by 42% compared to the average payload on normal day 2017 of 7.5 petabytes per day. Compared to the last New Year period, this time’s payload jumped by 151%.

The areas with the highest data traffic increase are Central Java and D.I. Yogyakarta with 56% rise compared to normal day, followed by West Java (51%) and Sulawesi (50%).

Adita Irawati, Vice President of Corporate Communications of Telkomsel, said, "The high increase in data service traffic is triggered by the rising activity of customers who upload photos or video of New Year’s moments through various social media applications. In addition, the use of smartphones and tablet computers to do video streaming and communication through the instant messaging app also increased during the period.”

The highest contribution to the use of data services in general comes from activities in social media that reach 35%. Customers also take advantage of data services to watch streaming movies or videos with a contribution of 31%. Meanwhile, text-based communications, as well as voice and video calls through instant messaging applications account for about 8% of data services usage.

Meanwhile, the decrease in traffic occurs for voice and SMS services. Compared to normal day traffic, voice service traffic decreased by 6% to 1.3 billion minutes, while SMS service traffic dropped by 5% to 659 million SMS.

"We had predicted this shift in customer behavior earlier, where data services are now more dominantly used by customers. Nevertheless, customers in some areas are still intensively using voice and SMS services to communicate during the New Year period,” said Adita.

Papua and Maluku became the region that experienced the highest increase in voice traffic services with an increase of about 7% compared to normal days. Meanwhile, the region with the highest SMS traffic is Kalimantan with an increase of about 22% over the normal day.

"We are grateful that the various preparations we have made over the past few months are able to deliver excellent service during the New Year period. For us, the convenience of customers in communicating in special moments like New Year is very important. We strive to continue to improve the quality of service so customers are more comfortable in communicating using Telkomsel services at any time," said Adita.

To anticipate the spike of service traffics at the turn of the year, Telkomsel has strengthened all the network elements throughout Indonesia. Network optimization has taken place in 709 major crowded points such as airports, stations, terminals, ports, tourist attractions, hotels and lodges, as well as places of worship, including 14 priority points and 13 shopping centers requiring reliable quality broadband services.

Some of the activities undertaken by Telkomsel include deploying 103 units of compact mobile base station (Combat) or Mobile BTS and increasing the capacity for internet services to 1,740 Gbps. In terms of customer service, Telkomsel has alerted 592 Mobile GraPARI (MoGi) and 359 standby outlets providing starter packs, credit top-up services, and activation of various digital services. Customers can also get served in around 430 GraPARI Siaga throughout Indonesia.