Beirut on May 16, 2022: Alfa and touch, in close coordination with the Ministry of Telecommunications, ensured an exceptional mobile network performance during the election day keeping pace with the exceptional rise in voice and data consumption.
Alfa’s pre-emptive planning for election day resulted in full network readiness and a seamless service where no disruptions were witnessed across Lebanon. Consumption of data services saw an exponential increase rising up to 20 percent compared to normal Sundays. Twitter, Whatsapp and Snapchat topped customer trends as the 3 top apps in terms of traffic. Voice services also grew by more than 20 percent and all-day availability was ensured for voice calls. Overall, the network availability hit a peak of 93.4 percent.
To ensure full preparedness, Alfa teams were on field as well as remotely monitoring the network inputs. Engineers from Alfa were present at the Ministry of Interior for logistical support. Alfa contingency planning and the reliance on mobile cell sites (CoWs) to boost coverage in several districts helped reduce congestions to minimal levels and ensure sites are fully connected and available to serve customers across Lebanon. All this has resulted in 0 complaints from customers. Alfa was also closely coordinating with security authorities to protect the network sites from any assaults that might have impacted communication during the election process.
Touch’s network achieved a distinct performance with main KPIs maintaining a high level of efficiency despite the growth of voice traffic by 50 percent and data consumption by 30 percent. Network availability reached high levels of more than 93 percent during the day and around 95.2 percent in Beirut administrative area, all thanks to the precautionary measures taken by touch and the close coordination among all stakeholders. Touch’s network availability helped bolster the coverage especially in remote areas, maintain good quality experience across Lebanon and accommodate the increase in consumption everywhere. Network speeds were maintained, and despite having faced few challenges, these were immediately handled through the implementation of the optimization measures which resulted in a smooth network performance.
