Power outages and power cuts could bring down mobile networks in parts of Europe this winter, Reuters reported.
Since the conflict with Ukraine, Russia has cut off major gas pipelines to Europe, raising the prospect of power shortages. With France’s nuclear power plants now closed for maintenance, the situation has become even more dire.
Telecom industry officials say many European countries currently do not have enough backup systems in place to cope with widespread power outages, raising the possibility that cell phone signals will be disrupted. European Union countries, including France, Sweden and Germany, are working to ensure that communications can continue, even if backup batteries installed on thousands of cellular antennas risk running out. Most of Europe’s nearly half a million telecom towers have backup batteries that can continue to run for about 30 minutes to maintain a signal.
In France, power cuts of up to two hours a day are possible in a worst-case scenario, according to people familiar with the situation. Regular power cuts alternately affect parts of the country, leaving essential services such as health care, security and government unaffected.
The French government, telecoms operators and Enedis, a unit of state-controlled utility EDF (EDF.PA), have held talks over the summer on the issue, the French government and sources said. Their talks focused on Enedis’ inability to protect itself from the effects of tower outages. In a statement to Reuters, Enedis said that in the event of an exceptional power outage, all customers would be affected.
Telecoms companies in Sweden and Germany have also raised concerns with their governments about potential power shortages, several sources familiar with the matter said.
Sweden’s telecom regulator, PTS, is working with telecom operators and other government agencies to find a solution. This includes discussing what would happen if electricity were rationed. PTS is financing the purchase of removable gas stations and mobile base stations whose signals connect to cell phones for longer outages, a spokeswoman said.
Telecom equipment makers NOKIA and Ericsson are working with mobile operators to mitigate the impact of power shortages, three people familiar with the matter said. Telecom experts say European telecom operators must tightly regulate their networks to reduce extra power use and optimize communications equipment by using more energy-efficient radio designs. To save power, telecom companies are using software to optimize traffic by putting towers to “sleep” when not in use, turning off different bands, people familiar with the matter said.
Deutsche Telekom has 33,000 mobile radio sites (towers), and its mobile emergency power system can support only a fraction of them at a time. Deutsche Telekom (DTEGn.DE) will use a mobile emergency power system that runs mainly on diesel to cope with prolonged power outages.
For his part, FFT President Liza Bellulo said France has about 62,000 mobile towers and the industry will not be able to equip all of them with new batteries.
European countries, used to uninterrupted power for decades, are not equipped with generators to sustain power for longer.
Post time: Oct-08-2022