Vox tracks the big shift to working online from home

Going through the national lockdown has given Vox Telecom an opportunity to review its business and possibly implement new ways of working, says CEO Jacques du Toit. Vox is still doing business during the lockdown as it provides an essential service.

Du Toit gives Business Day insight into how Vox’s operations are doing during these difficult times.

Q: The lockdown has changed how people work. Are you looking to make any permanent changes when the lockdown is over?

A: My team and I have been discussing lessons from the lockdown on a daily basis but we are hesitant to make radical or blanket decisions before the crisis ends. From what we have seen, certain parts of the business work well with people at home. In addition, the option to work remotely may help Vox to attract more skilled people who would otherwise not want to be tied to a desk or office. Business is going on as usual for the most part.

How are people spending their time online during the lockdown?

In terms of online activity and what people are spending time on, Vox has seen a 300% increase in video conferencing traffic on the network. We’ve also seen a 50% rise in voice activity.

This increase in virtual meetings and collaboration has also resulted in a huge uptick in our sales of licences for Microsoft’s Office 365 and Teams products as more people work from home.

The biggest change in online activity, from what we’ve seen, has been the shift in behaviour, particularly on home networks.

Where South Africans have tended to download more than they upload data online, driven by streaming video and music or consuming content on social media, there has been a shift to more uploads now, driven by people uploading work-related content to servers and cloud platforms.

Another driver is education.

As e-learning has been on the rise with more schools offering online tutorials, students have to upload completed assignments and other related materials.

When schools open, this type of traffic is likely to rise further on the network.

Hopefully this change in behaviour will result in customers upgrading their internet packages when the lockdown period ends.

What steps has the industry taken to aid in the national Covid-19 effort?

To aid in the national Covid19 response, a number of fibre network operators across the country, including Vox, have doubled the line speed of customers free of charge to accommodate the changing usage patterns and to help our customers access the internet and online services faster.

Because fibre is fixed-line infrastructure, these upgrades have taken place automatically with no disruption to end users.

What are your thoughts on the temporary spectrum allocation by government?

The industry welcomes Icasa’s [Independent Communications Authority of SA] new regulations for the temporary allocation of radio frequency spectrum, to aid in communications during the national lockdown. The problem, though, is that there is confusion about what happens afterwards. Does it get taken back? There are no rules on how the bidding will continue.

This doesn’t affect Vox directly because we did not apply for the spectrum. This allocation is for operators with cellphone towers in place already. Vox does not have such infrastructure.

How did Vox prepare for the lockdown?

In entering the period of national lockdown, the first challenge was actually getting ready for maintaining operations while observing social distancing.

On one hand, we had to make sure our 1,700 staff members had all the tools and equipment to work remotely. At the same time, Vox has 4,500 contractors across SA working on various projects that all had to be trained to adhere to the lockdown regulations.

This was all done in about five days.

How has Vox kept its call centres operating during the lockdown?

Our call centre staff have been working remotely or from home since the start of the lockdown. Through a cloudbased call-centre platform, staff can log into the system remotely and take calls as if they were at Vox’s facility.

There were initial issues in setting up a fully remote arrangement in the first two days, I admit, but after resolving those initial issues, it’s been business as usual.

Out of our total staff complement of 1,700 people, 200 make up the call-centre function.

What challenges have you faced trying to operate during the lockdown?

The problem that companies like Vox have faced over the lockdown is continuing with the work of building their networks. Though telecommunications has been deemed an essential service, much work has been halted or stalled because municipalities that give permits and other support at the local level have been closed, thereby limiting the amount of work being done.

Enforcement agencies like the police and the army also frustrate work for fibre companies as they aren’t aware of which services have been deemed essential and which have not.