GARDEN ROUTE | KAROO NEWS - While we all experience the usual load shedding woes with dark homes and cold food, at times of increased outages — like stage four to six load shedding — the loss of network and Internet connectivity is an ever-increasing problem.
Some networks lose Internet coverage to the point where one cannot make a phone call or receive messages.
The Weekend Witness asked some of the biggest telecommunications companies what happens to their cell phone towers during load shedding.
All telecommunication companies said they have base stations which are always ready to take over during load shedding, however, these get affected when load shedding gets prolonged — not allowing them to reboot and recharge.
According to a statement released by Telkom, one of the biggest telecommunications companies in the country, base stations are equipped with backup batteries, which ensures that the base station remains up-and-running and functional when the power supply is disrupted.
“This allows the reception of voice and data services to function and continue uninterrupted, which means that subscribers can enjoy services even during such events,” read the statement.
The group added that the backup time is dependent on the number of batteries deployed in the Base Station, how many services are configured in the base station and how busy the base station is.
“If the power outage remains longer than what the capacity of the batteries can support, the base station will shut itself down once the backup power in the batteries has been depleted, and voice and data services will no longer be available.
“However, if batteries were illegally damaged or removed from the base station, there will be no backup power whatsoever, and the base station will shut off immediately when the power outage occurs,” read the statement.
They added that once load shedding is over, the backup batteries will automatically be recharged so that the base station is ready for the next power outage or load shedding event.
Weekend Witness spoke to a Vodacom spokesperson, who said while some customers may experience issues connecting to the network due to stage four load shedding, they are proactively doing all they can to mitigate the effects of widespread load shedding.
This includes deploying back-up power solutions, such as generators, to as many sites across the country as possible. They added that stage four load shedding does, however, mean more frequent and protracted power outages which impacts the ability of their batteries to recharge fully. Meanwhile chief technology and information officer at MTN SA, Michele Gamberini said increased load shedding is a challenge for battery recharging.
“Despite us having placed thousands of batteries at our sites across the country, the efficacy of those batteries greatly reduces once we pass stage four load shedding.”
Gamberini says MTN has upgraded its battery back-up solutions on over 70% of the sites already this year and is currently deploying additional batteries. “MTN is still faced with the challenge that the current outage schedule does not allow enough time for batteries to charge.
Battery back-up systems generally take 12-18 hours to recharge, while batteries have a capacity of about 6-12 hours, depending on the site category,” said Gamberini. He added that in addition to the battery roll-out, MTN has also deployed over 2 000 generators to counter the impact of stage four (and higher) load shedding.
Gamberini said their focus at MTN is to keep delivering consistent and stable connectivity for all of their customers in support of the growth and development of the nation.
