Firm 'minimising disruption' during 5G rollout

A telecom company says it aims to minimise disruption for customers as it continues to roll out its 5G network.

Sure is investing £48m in the upgrade across Guernsey and Jersey, with hopes to bring higher data speeds and better coverage to islanders.

CEO Alistair Beak said the "ambitious plan" was "a big complex programme", which had caused a minority of customers "some minor temporary disruptions".

He said the company aimed to minimise such issues and complete the rollout "in the next few months".

Last month, a Sure apologised for an increase in faults while the network transformation was under way.

At the time a spokesperson said the issues experienced did "not all have one single cause" and individual customer cases were being investigated.

They advised people experiencing problems to contact the firm with details of the location, time and description of the problem.

Beak said the company had "put a lot of work into planning" and understanding "how the different technologies and the new network was going to work" alongside "what will become the old network".

He said: "By and large, it's working as we predicted.

"The vast majority of our customers are still making thousands of calls, are still using huge amounts of data and staying online and staying connected."

Beak said mobile coverage on the islands was expected to improve by up to 30% once the rollout was complete later this year.

Follow BBC Guernsey on X and Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to channel.islands@bbc.co.uk.