Nobody goes into telecoms for the appreciation of their customers, and we're generally only noticed when things go wrong. I get it, but I have to admit, this post depressed me.
Coronavirus has hit the whole economy, and telecoms isn't excluded. Suddenly, huge numbers of people are working from home. Those not working from home are streaming on Netflix, and the increase in traffic has been massive. We have seen the highest internet demand ever over the past few weeks. And it's not just internet traffic. Phone calls have doubled, and people are talking for longer.
There are changes in the ways that Openreach and Virgin staff need to work as well. They need to stay safe, and this means not going into customer premises. They have to work alone. Call centre staff are also being relocated to home environments. Staff are off sick, and in many cases also needing to work and care for children simultaneously.
And on top of this increase in traffic and capability, we've got idiots attacking staff and setting fire to critical national infrastructure - most of which hasn't been associated with 5G, and none of which carries the mmWave bands they're complaing about.
Despite this, I think the industry has done a good job. Service levels have been stable, and in many cases improved. Massive amounts of new capacity have been deployed, vulnerable customers have been identified and supported. Nightingale hospitals have been provided with IT and comms at very short notice. 101/999 capacity has been increased, contact tracing apps are being developed. Mobile data to government sites like 111 have been taken out of bundle and free-rated. There has been absolutely loads going on, all of it aimed at supporting customers above gouging for profits.
BT may have had an outage (or it may just be you), but if it has, you can be assured that people will have been working through the night to get it fixed. Nobody goes to work to do a crap job, and all telco staff are well aware that our networks are critical infrastructure.