{"id":629733,"date":"2026-02-20T10:59:57","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T08:59:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=629733"},"modified":"2026-02-20T11:01:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T09:01:23","slug":"vodacom-is-using-tech-to-fight-new-crisis-bigger-than-load-shedding-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/629733-vodacom-is-using-tech-to-fight-new-crisis-bigger-than-load-shedding-in-south-africa.html","title":{"rendered":"Vodacom is using tech to fight new crisis bigger than load-shedding in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Water authorities in Gauteng are implementing “load-shifting” to prevent the total collapse of the province’s water network, which is something Vodacom has been working to address with smart meters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Thursday, 12 February 2026, water and sanitation deputy minister David Mahlobo announced the introduction of the demand-reduction mechanism, which effectively amounts to water load-shedding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The measure was one of several “soft” water restrictions the deputy minister and Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi outlined at a media briefing last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Various areas of Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni, and Tshwane have been experiencing widespread water outages and low pressure, which an illegal strike by Johannesburg Water workers exacerbated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Mahlobo, most reservoirs in Gauteng were below 60% capacity. He said it would take more than 10 days for the system to stabilise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said load-shifting would be implemented to transfer water from reservoirs and parts of the system still in a healthy state to help address shortages in other areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This involves shutting off or throttling flow from stable reservoirs to their conventional supply areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mahlobo said that the measures may also impact supply in provinces adjacent to Gauteng, including North West and Mpumalanga.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Warnings about a water crisis in South Africa go back nearly two decades. However, the government did little to address the crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vodacom, in partnership with Macrocomm, Ontec, and Mezzanine, has been working to address the crisis with narrowband Internet of Things (IoT) smart water meters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The smart metering system offers numerous benefits across various areas,” a Vodacom spokesperson told MyBroadband.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One such benefit is enhanced operational efficiency enabled by near-real-time flow and pressure data, automated loss alerts, and zone-by-zone loss analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the spokesperson, these essential features will help reduce non-revenue water and manual reading costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In terms of revenue management, the system integrates seamlessly with municipal billing engines and supports time-of-use tariffs, improving revenue recovery and ensuring cash flow certainty,” they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“For customer empowerment, households can monitor their daily water usage through a web portal and receive alerts via WhatsApp or SMS, preventing bill shocks and encouraging conservation.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Environmental benefits and proven scalability<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Videsha Proothveerajh, Vodacom Business director<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

According to Vodacom, the smart metering system also provides substantial environmental benefits, with demand-side management helping to curb over-abstraction and reduce energy consumed in pumping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This has a significant impact in supporting South Africa’s water security and climate action goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The spokesperson said the system uses an accredited installer training model, the effectiveness of which has been proven in Vodacom’s smart electricity meter rollouts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This proven track record in electricity metering showcases the scalability of Vodacom’s IoT ecosystem and provides a playbook for water metering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Overall, the smart metering system is a comprehensive solution that drives efficiency, revenue, customer engagement, environmental sustainability, and community development,” they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vodacom Business revealed that it was working with municipalities to manage water consumption and delivery with smart metering following the State of the Nation Address in February 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Infrastructure challenges pose significant threats to economic growth and social stability in South Africa,” Vodacom Business director, Videsha Proothveerajh, stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In particular, a secure, reliable water supply is an urgent priority as communities continue to regularly face disruptive water shortages due to failing infrastructure and poor management.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The National Treasury appointed Vodacom Business as a smart metering service provider in mid-2024, along with six other bidders for the RT29 transversal contract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This comes after it was appointed a smart metering service provider in May 2024, following the National Treasury’s award of the RT29 transversal contract to it and six other bidders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The water meters must run on the Sigfox network, feature an embedded antenna, and have a lithium battery with an approximate life of 10 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa faces a water crisis that government ignored for years, and Vodacom Business is helping address it with IoT smart meters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":588672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[28859,30678,103393,42986,103394,81145,41,3948,103395],"class_list":["post-629733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-david-mahlobo","tag-internet-of-things-iot","tag-iot-smart-meter","tag-sigfox","tag-smart-water-meter","tag-videsha-proothveerajh","tag-vodacom","tag-vodacom-business","tag-water-shifting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629733"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629733"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":629794,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629733\/revisions\/629794"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}