JT helping festival goers stay connected

Monday 14 September 2015

Jersey Live's headline sponsor JT has been proving how it's centre stage when it comes to keeping festival goers connected.

The company has put together an infographic showing just how connected this year’s festival was.

Attracting over 9,000 people per day over the weekend, Jersey Live is the largest music event in the Channel Islands. As it’s grown, so has the importance of providing world-class infrastructure to support the changing technological demands of festival goers and their desire to ‘keep connected’ throughout.

Dave Newbold, Chief Technology Officer at JT explains how things have changed: “For the first few years of Jersey Live festival-goers relied mainly on their mobiles for voice calls and texting, with the use of data services being very small. In just a few years the demand for data services has grown exponentially, driven by the rise of the iPhone and the vast array of Smart phones and devices. We now have to put many months of planning and investment into the tech that JT powers at big public events like Jersey Live and recently at the Island Games.

“Thanks to our brand new LTE-Advanced mobile network, the best in Channel Islands, JT is now delivering improved 3G and superfast new 4G mobile data services.  This means our customers can now expect great internet service, whenever they want it and wherever they are. So our focus is to ensure they get this same service during the weekend at Jersey Live. That’s why we have invested over £100,000 into building two dedicated mobile sites that we positioned at The Royal Jersey Showground during the two-day event.  This meant we were able to meet the vastly increased data demand on our network for those two days and ensure every single person accessing the internet via their mobile, at any given time during Jersey Live enjoyed a superfast and reliable service with JT.”

Over our ten-year sponsorship, JT has also provided a free Wi-Fi internet service at Jersey Live to help organisers, artists, site managers and of course festival go-ers the freedom to use free internet access throughout. This year again the Wi-Fi was powered by JT’s fibre-optic broadband providing maximum capacity and reliability to support the huge demand we saw again at Jersey’s largest community event.

Tamara O’Brien, Head of Marketing, Brand and Distribution at JT, said: “Free Wi-Fi is something that we are all coming to expect at events and public venues, and with JT’s fibre-optic powered broadband available throughout Jersey Live meant our customers and all festival-goers had access to the fastest and most reliable internet connection through using their mobile devices. This year thanks to our partnership with leading experts Purple Wi-Fi we added another dimensions through being able to share real-time updates about acts, stage times and everything that was going on. We saw 4G data usage increase five and half times the amount it was in 2013. Our infographic shows just how much customers used the service. We also showcased some of the latest tech through our FREE virtual reality and e-gaming demos in our Par4 area.”

Tamara O’Brien added: “Our continued investment in the infrastructure at this specific venue has meant more seamless connectivity than ever and that usage stats demonstrate just how much customers used it.  Thanks to JT. We’re so proud of our association with this truly community-focused and reputable event and having played our part in delivering probably the most connected festival in the World.”