Eskom to target telecoms services [April Fools]
Eskom has announced that it will start to loadshed both wireless and fixed line telecoms services in areas of high electricity usage, mainly because these services already have backup power plans in place.
The electricity provider said that ‘excessive power’ is used by fixed line phone exchanges and mobile phone towers, and that this electricity can be better utilized by more vital national infrastructure like traffic lights and hospitals.
Telecoms operators, including Telkom, Neotel, Vodacom, MTN and Cell C, condemned Eskom’s latest plans, saying services like the Internet and mobile phone services are just as vital for the country as health services and traffic lights.
Telkom said that any telecoms disruption cost the economy millions, leaving businesses and consumers unable to communicate and hence crippling the economy.
Mobile providers Vodacom and MTN supported Telkom’s view, saying that many people and companies rely on mobile phone services to function. These include various emergency services like the police, ambulance services and the well known 082 911 service.
Telecoms downtimes likely
Eskom’s assistant head of corporate communications, Jake Okeri, said that the load shedding of telecoms services should not have a significant impact on general telecoms operations as most operators already have backup power and other preventative measures in place.
Local telecoms providers however highlighted that while most of their core infrastructure does indeed have power backup systems, it comes at a significant cost to run and maintain these systems which makes any power outage very costly.
These providers further said that while most fixed line exchanges and mobile phone towers are equipped with backup power sources like batteries and diesel generators, there are some services which rely entirely on Eskom power.
Electricity outages have already affected services in areas reliant on infrastructure without power backup, and Eskom’s targeting of telecoms services during load shedding may aggravate these downtimes.
Okeri hit back saying that it is likely that load shedding of telecoms services in certain regions will coincide with general load shedding which means that customer premise equipment like PABX systems and computers will be down making telecoms services irrelevant.
For more details about Eskom’s load shedding of telecoms services, please visit the official telecoms loadshedding site here
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