Stage 6 load-shedding bad news for South Africa’s cellular networks
Eskom’s stage 6 load-shedding will worsen the negative impact South Africa’s cellular networks already felt under lower levels of power cuts, Telkom and Vodacom have said.
“Load-shedding has a negative impact on our network, which causes poor customer experience in some areas,” a Telkom spokesperson told MyBroadband.
“Stage 6 load-shedding will worsen the situation already created by stage 4.”
On Wednesday, Eskom announced that load-shedding would be extended by at least one more day, running until 05:00 on Friday, 1 July.
This came after Eskom announced stage 6 power cuts on Tuesday afternoon.
Power cuts currently fluctuate between stage 2 and stage 6 depending on the time of day, with the evening peak between 16:00 and 22:00 seeing the worst load-shedding levels.
Stage 6 load-shedding is scheduled for Wednesday evening. Eskom expects to reduce load-shedding to stage 4 on Thursday.
The state-owned power utility blamed its recent troubles on an illegal strike.
Disgruntled workers allegedly slashed managers’ tyres and petrol-bombed their homes.
Despite the attacks, Eskom has reportedly offered workers a 7% pay increase.
Vodacom and Telkom explained that long periods of load-shedding create a problem where their battery backups don’t have enough time to recharge.
“Some of Vodacom’s customers may experience issues connecting to the network due to Stage 6 load-shedding,” a spokesperson for Vodacom told MyBroadband.
Vodacom said it is doing all it can to mitigate the effects of widespread load-shedding by deploying backup power systems across South Africa.
“However, stage 6 does mean more frequent and protracted power outages, which impacts the ability of our batteries to recharge fully,” it explained.
During load-shedding, cellphone towers remain functional for as long as the batteries last or the backup generator keeps running.
Once these reserves are depleted, the tower stops working entirely and, depending on the configuration of nearby sites, may cause a coverage area to lose connectivity or customers to experience intermittent service.
“Generators run on diesel, which means they can continue to run while being refuelled,” Vodacom said.
“Batteries will last several hours before they will need electricity to recharge.”
Vodacom said its towers are equipped with backup batteries, but these have limited power and will eventually fail.
Telkom said most of its sites have a backup time of 6–12 hours during normal operating conditions.
Like Vodacom, it said the biggest challenge with prolonged outages is that batteries don’t have time to recharge fully.
Telkom also explained that deploying enough backup power to towers is more than an issue of the cost of batteries or fuel.
“We need to factor in the cost to repair and replace stolen batteries and security measures to prevent future vandalism,” Telkom stated.
“The cost is site-dependent and could run into hundreds of thousands of rands.”
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