Vodacom Group CEO Shameel Joosub, speaking in his capacity as chairman of the recently launched Association of Communications & Technology (ACT), has warned that extreme load shedding is having a severe impact the telecommunications sector and on consumers.

Instead of investing in rural infrastructure roll-out and in deploying new technologies, operators, including Vodacom, have been forced to spend billions of rand just to ensure they are able to continue delivering services to consumers when the lights go out.

And even then, it’s proving challenging, with criminals making off with the generators and battery backup solutions the networks are deploying, forcing them to invest even more money, this time in security to protect their assets.

Other than Vodacom, ACT’s founding members are Cell C, Liquid Intelligent Technologies, MTN, Rain and Telkom.

In a statement on Tuesday, Joosub said: “South Africa’s protracted and more frequent power cuts are having a significantly negative impact on the country’s mobile network operators. Although the industry has proactively spent billions of rand in backup power solutions for network stability and continuity, customers are increasingly becoming frustrated when they experience a drop in network performance during higher levels of loadshedding. This is largely unavoidable when power generation capacity is reduced to stage 4 and beyond.

“South Africa’s power crisis continues to add pressure to an already fragile economy. This at a time when conflict in Ukraine and the after-effects of a global health crisis has resulted in rapid increases in the cost of living. In a power-certain market, the massive amounts spent by network operators on the likes of batteries, generators and diesel would be channelled into programmes that deliver significantly better value to customers in the long term rather than simply keeping their networks running,” Joosub said.

‘Far-reaching’

He said the money spent on keeping base stations and data centres operational could have been better spent addressing the digital divide by accelerating rural coverage and assisting customers with lower tariffs.

“To enhance network resilience during load shedding, mobile operators have invested hugely into battery, generator and alternate backup power solutions at the tens of thousands of base station sites across South Africa. With prolonged and increased load shedding beyond stage 4, however, these batteries do not have enough time (usually 12-18 hours is needed) to fully recharge between outages. As a result, certain coverage areas may be at risk of experiencing intermittent service when there is no power,” Joosub said.

“It will require an extraordinary amount of money to fully mitigate even the likes of stage-4 load shedding, which ultimately would result in a substantial increase in the cost to communicate.”

Read: Who is really to blame for the load shedding crisis?

He said the private sector needs to work with government to “find solutions to South Africa’s national power crisis”.

ACT CEO Nomvuyiso Batyi said in the same statement that the effects of load shedding are “far-reaching and will ultimately hinder any progress on inclusive digital transformation in the country and exacerbate the digital divide that exists”. – © 2022 NewsCentral Media