Back in June 2026, “Sure’s 30 Mbit/s Mobile Upgrade: The Numbers Speak for Themselves” examined Sure Falkland Islands’ announcement of a headline speed increase from 12 Mbit/s to 30 Mbit/s on its mobile network. The post showed that the data quotas attached to each plan had not increased, meaning most customers would exhaust their monthly allowance around two and a half times faster than before. It generated considerable discussion at the time. My own view was that, for the speed upgrade to be genuinely usable, data quotas needed to increase alongside it. Barely two months later, Sure has announced a further round of changes, and this time the numbers tell a rather different story.
The image below, taken from Sure’s Facebook page on 24 July 2026, summarises the latest changes.
Sure’s 30th July press release.
A Rapid Second Upgrade — But With the Same Old Gaps
Data allowances have increased across every tier. Sure Basic now offers 1GB, Sure Essential 3GB, Sure Plus 10GB, Sure Max 20GB and Sure Ultimate 30GB. At the same time, download speeds have increased from “up to 30 Mbit/s” to “up to 50 Mbit/s”, the middle-tier packages now include additional minutes and texts, and existing customers are migrated automatically at no extra cost.
Taken at face value, this addresses most of the criticism levelled at the June announcement. A 30GB allowance on the top tier is a materially different proposition to the 15GB allowance that made a 30Mbit/s headline speed almost meaningless in practice. That is a genuine and welcome improvement, and it should be acknowledged as such.
Why Weren’t These Changes Made the First Time?
The obvious question is why this correction has taken barely two months, rather than being built into the June announcement from the outset. Sure’s own explanation, via CEO Roma Stewart, is that the changes follow feedback from a “Sure Customer Survey 2026”, implying the June package was announced before it had been fully informed by what customers actually wanted. If that is accurate, it suggests the June package was announced before it had been adequately tested against what customers actually needed. It also raises a fair question about sequencing: if customer research was already underway, why announce a headline speed increase in June before the accompanying quota increases customers were about to ask for were in place?
There is, however, a possible technical explanation. Sure may have taken the conservative approach of increasing download speeds first, while keeping data quotas unchanged until it was confident the network could sustain the higher performance reliably. Introducing one major change at a time is a sensible way of managing technical and operational risk. If that was the reasoning, it would help explain the sequencing of the June and July announcements, although only Sure can confirm whether that was in fact the case.
A Speed Increase, Confirmed Across the Board
One other aspect is worth noting. The uplift to 50 Mbit/s appears to apply uniformly across all five plans, not just the higher tiers.
However, the Mobile Price Plans page does not mention download speeds anywhere in the package descriptions. For a speed increase this large and that applies equally across the whole mobile customer base, it is odd that Sure’s package descriptions are silent on it.
What This Episode Tells Us
Two significant revisions to the same mobile plans within little more than two months suggest the original package may have been announced before every aspect had been fully settled. While the latest changes are a significant improvement, the relationship between download speeds and data quotas is still much less generous than it was before the June speed increases.
| Plan | Original quota @ 12Mbit/s | Current quota | Actual quota increase | Quota needed at 50Mbit/s to match original usage time | Quota Shortfall |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | 250MB | 1GB | 4x | 1.04GB | −0.04GB (4% short) |
| Smart1 | 1GB | 3GB | 3x | 4.17GB | 1.17GB (28% short) |
| Smart3 | 3GB | 10GB | 3.3x | 12.5GB | 2.5GB (20% short) |
| Smart10 | 10GB | 20GB | 2x | 41.7GB | 21.7GB (52% short) |
| Smart15 | 15GB | 30GB | 2x | 62.5GB | 32.5GB (52% short) |
Caveat: A note on these figures: this table measures theoretical usage time at maximum download speed, not real-world net browsing. Nobody uses their mobile at full speed continuously for a month. The figures are a comparative device to show how generously (or not) each plan’s quota has kept pace with its speed increase; they are not a literal estimate of how many minutes of use a customer actually gets.
None of this should overshadow the substance of the announcement. Customers on every mobile plan now receive more data, faster download speeds and additional value at no extra cost. That is a genuine improvement and deserves to be recognised. The latest packages are considerably stronger than those announced in June, and Sure’s customers are better off as a result.
Chris Gare, OpenFalklands, August 2026, copyright OpenFalklands
I’m pretty content with the 3GB allowance for the “default” package which is enough for normal mobile use and messaging – I only recently started to have to monitor usage to keep below 1GB.
What now needs to happen is for the mobile network to be sorted out so that 4G and data actually works properly everywhere, and Miplayer is accessible on mobile without coming off the data allowance. It can be done quite easily – Miplayer works fine on the FWA network, which is the same thing.