The TalkTalk Blog

The snow has brought equal measures of chaos and fun, depending on whether you were trying to get to work or had been given the day off school on Monday. With most of the transport infrastructure closed, particularly in London, millions of workers decided that the best course of action was to work from home.

From a networking point of view, this is both an exciting and nail biting time. We’re used to experiencing sudden surges of network activity at certain times of the day, which we plan ahead for, but since the birth of the broadband network we’ve never seen adverse weather cause so many people to work (and play) from home on an individual day. In fact, the Federation of Small Businesses estimated that 1 in 5 workers failed to turn in on Monday, with many more deciding to do the same yesterday and today.

Our network team worked flat out to keep the network up and running. Some TalkTalk phone customers in the south may have experienced difficulties making calls due to extreme congestion on the lines, which we apologise for, but this was very localised. The broadband network held up well, with around 1.6 million customers logging on during the day, increasing to 1.7 million by 8.00pm, perhaps to check out snow related news and upload their pictures!

Many of our voice-only customers also enjoyed the benefits of free daytime calls (for customers on the Anytime Call package or who had taken out the Anytime Boost with their myTalkTalk essential package) as they checked in with the office – or made snowman-building arrangements with friends. Our figures show that more than 8.5 million calls were made on Monday, a 34% increase on the previous week.

With the potential for more adverse weather on the way, we’ll be braced for extra surges in activity. We’ll keep you updated on the network’s performance via the TalkTalk members’ forum website.

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Posted by Clive Dorsman on 5 February 2009 14:52:00 GMT #