ℹ️ This doc is for the Dec 2024-Jan 2025 season and may be updated if new information is provided.

Each year during the South African Summer Holiday period, most of the local telecoms industry takes a break between 15 Dec and 15 Jan – and you can’t really get anything new installed. Support can be a bit slower too.

The good news is that, in our experience, the fibre networks are much more stable during this time because nobody is making changes.

There is no real change in what Atomic can support – just be aware that things can be slower if we open tickets with the fibre networks.

🚧 TL;DR #

• Please allow a little more time than usual for support. We will be here to help as much as we can, but please understand there are limitations during the freeze period imposed by 3rd parties not being available
• No new trenching or new-fibre builds will happen from around the 15th of December to around the 15th of January
• Review info about our Support Channels, Contact Hours, and troubleshooting steps if you have a fibre problem
• Telecoms companies may have over 50% of their employees on leave during the summer holiday period

Below is an overview of the various freeze periods for Atomic and each of the Fibre Network Operators we work with.

🚀 Atomic Freeze Period #

• Support: Normal support hours – please review our Support Page and Contact Page for contact methods and availability
• Network freeze: No planned maintenance/upgrades from 15 December to 15 January
• Ops/Onboarding: We’ll do our best to assist with queries, orders, activations and WiFi router deliveries however, things will take a little longer than usual, given 3rd parties not operating.
• Courier: Our courier service aims to provide next business day service, and doesn’t operate on public holidays.

🐙 Octotel Freeze Period #

• Support: Normal support hours
• New Installations: Reduced capacity for scheduling and installations. No new installations on December 25th, 26th, and 1 January 2025
• No planned civils/trenching/new builds: 30 November 2024 – 6 January 2025, with reduced capacity until the end of January 2025

🐸 Frogfoot Freeze Period #

• Support: Normal support hours but with reduced capacity from 13 December 2024 – 06 January 2025
• Network freeze: No planned maintenance/upgrades from 13 December 2024 to 06 January 2025
• New Installations: Limited activities from 15 December 2024 – 15 January 2025

🐰 Vumatel Freeze Period #

• Support: Normal support hours but with skeleton staff throughout the holiday season.
• Maintenance: Maintenance teams are not able to help on public holidays.
• Trenching freeze: 13 December 2024 to 13 January 2025
• Network freeze: 14 December 2024 to 12 January 2025
• Install freeze: 24 December 2024 to 2 January 2025
• Reconnects and Migrations freeze: 30 December 2024 to 2 January 2025

🦎 Openserve Freeze Period #

• Network freeze: No planned maintenance/upgrades from 21 December 2024 to and including 7 January 2025

👷‍♂️ Builders Holiday #

The builder’s holiday is roughly 8 December to 15 January each year. During this time, no trenching or civils work can occur, and there is normally a backlog when they start working again.