Telecom ready for power outages

TELECOM Namibia last week said it was well equipped to deal with power shortages, as it had invested in equipment to offset the lurking problem.

Telecom’s Senior Manager for Corporate Communications, Oiva Angula, said in a press release that all sites across the country with telecommunication infrastructure were fully backed up with a standby generator set, which can take over the power supply to any site in case of a power failure. Minor sites, he said, have enough battery autonomy to cover three to five hours of power outages.This means that Switch mobile phones and all fixed telephone services will work, as they rely on Telecom Namibia’s exchange power over the copper lines.”These sites will be closely monitored during such periods,” said Angula.However, he said this facility does not cover customer premises and any electricity outage or load-shedding exercise is likely to affect telecoms services starting from your cordless phone, answering machine, private branch exchange, ADSL modem, WiMAX modem or any other network terminating unit that requires power.This is because these systems/modems utilise the power supplied by local authorities.Said Angula: “In these instances a lack of emergency standby power generation within customer premises will be the primary cause of service interruptions.”He said the fixed-line company had put in place disaster management protocols as part of its standards of good governance practice, hence its core network and systems were comprehensively covered by back-up power supply, enabling them to continue with normal functioning in the event of load-shedding, despite it being a costly affair.Minor sites, he said, have enough battery autonomy to cover three to five hours of power outages.This means that Switch mobile phones and all fixed telephone services will work, as they rely on Telecom Namibia’s exchange power over the copper lines.”These sites will be closely monitored during such periods,” said Angula.However, he said this facility does not cover customer premises and any electricity outage or load-shedding exercise is likely to affect telecoms services starting from your cordless phone, answering machine, private branch exchange, ADSL modem, WiMAX modem or any other network terminating unit that requires power.This is because these systems/modems utilise the power supplied by local authorities.Said Angula: “In these instances a lack of emergency standby power generation within customer premises will be the primary cause of service interruptions.”He said the fixed-line company had put in place disaster management protocols as part of its standards of good governance practice, hence its core network and systems were comprehensively covered by back-up power supply, enabling them to continue with normal functioning in the event of load-shedding, despite it being a costly affair.