Cape Town phone users could have a nasty surprise in store for them when they receive their telecommunications bills at the end of the month, since the rolling power cuts may have resulted in their having to use more expensive telecoms options.
The city`s ongoing electricity cuts disrupted telecoms services across the city during the past week, causing switchboards and voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) services to fail, and forcing users to resort to more expensive landline options or cellphones instead.
The power outages have been attributed to problems at the aging Koeberg nuclear power station, no upgrade in the municipal power grid for at least 10 years and a rapidly expanding urban population that has caused demand to outstrip supply.
Disruption of telecommunications services included problems with Telkom lines, switchboards failing and loss of Internet and other forms of data connectivity.
A Telkom statement says customers are experiencing problems primarily with their customer premises equipment (CPE), which includes PBXs, primarily because these units do not have emergency power, or uninterrupted power supply (UPS).
"The severity of the power outages has resulted in an influx of calls to Telkom`s call centres. In all instances Telkom has taken appropriate measures to ensure the quality of its service delivery," the statement says.
Telkom adds that its core plant remained largely unaffected by the outages due to its backup power generation equipment. It has also increased its staff complement in all its support centres.
VOIP services
Dave Gale, director of new business at telecoms utility Storm, says the power outages affect his company`s VOIP customers. He notes that when the CPE fails, calls are automatically routed through the usual Telkom network, eliminating savings that should have been made using the VOIP service.
"Our VOIP gateway equipment is usually not linked to a UPS. Some companies have connected UPS, while others have not," he says.
Gale says Storm`s core operations remain unaffected.
Andre Pretorious, DataPro`s Western Cape region director, says most of his company`s clients are call centres that have emergency power backup, and so they seem largely unaffected.
"However, there is a problem with routing calls and that will impact on them. We will only see over time what the real impact will be," he says.
Cellular services
Mobile phone calls have been the most efficient way to reach people due to the inability of PBX systems to route calls. The cellular network operators say their services have not been affected and their base stations have sufficient battery power to last the length of most of the outages, which average between four and eight hours.
Cell C says its 150 base stations throughout the city have been operating despite the electricity disruptions.
"Most of them have sufficient battery power to outlast most of the cuts. Where necessary, we will put in generators. We also have an agreement with the other operators to share generator capacity where necessary," says a Cell C spokesperson.
Spokespeople for Vodacom and MTN say their companies have sufficient emergency generators for all their base stations in the city.
The network operators say they are still examining data concerning how cellphone usage peaked during the power cuts to get an indication on how it will affect consumers` bills.
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