Johannesburg - Load shedding continues to wreak havoc in the country with cellphone providers struggling to ensure reception during blackouts.
This is despite mobile networks having investments in back-up systems and generators. South Africa’s three network providers said most of their sites had been equipped with battery back-up systems which were meant to last for hours.
However, the frequency of load shedding is adding strain to their systems. They said this impacted the ability of batteries to recharge fully, resulting in the internet and calls being affected.
Recently, Eskom implemented Stage 4, 5, and 6 load shedding, citing breakdowns at power stations. This left consumers venting their frustrations as cell towers struggled to stay on. MTN chief technology and information officer, Michele Gamberini, said increased load shedding was a challenge for battery recharging.
Gamberini said despite thousands of batteries at its sites across the country, the efficacy of those batteries greatly reduced once the country passed stage 4 load shedding.
“MTN is still faced with challenges that the current outage schedule doesn’t allow enough time for batteries to charge. Battery back-up systems take 12 to 18 hours to recharge, while batteries have a capacity of about six to 12 hours, depending on the site category.
“Consistent outages, therefore, have a direct impact on the performance of the batteries, while consistent theft of the batteries themselves means replacements need to be installed,” said Gamberini.
Cell C chief operations officer, Andre Ittmann, echoed the sentiments, saying multiple outages in a single day also affected how soon the batteries could recharge, which reduces the efficiency of the back-up.
“During power outages or load shedding, base station generators and back-up batteries kick in and are supposed to last two to four hours. If the outage goes beyond four hours, problems can arise. The batteries can overheat and take longer to cool down which can affect the efficiency of the signal transmission, ie network.”
Vodacom spokesperson Byron Kennedy also said load shedding continued to be problematic despite the network provider investing heavily in back-up systems. Kennedy said Vodacom spent about R2 billion on batteries over the past two years.
“While some customers may experience issues connecting to the network due to Stage 4 load shedding, Vodacom is proactively doing all we 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.
“Stage 4 load shedding does, however, mean more frequent and protracted power outages which impact the ability of our batteries to recharge fully. This means that certain coverage areas around the country may only be able to provide intermittent service to customers at times,” said Kennedy.