Load shedding has caused major disruptions in lives and businesses and Eskom is showing no signs of stopping or reducing load shedding any time soon.
On Tuesday, Eskom announced it will continue with Stage 5 load shedding until 4pm, thereafter, it will implement Stage 6, and this pattern will be repeated daily until Friday.
The daily implementation of higher stages is due to the loss of generating units, the need to replenish emergency generation reserves, and increased planned maintenance.
Load shedding can have a big impact on your appliances, wreak havoc on alarm system, as well as affecting cellular network signal.
But why does this happen?
Most cell phone towers in South Africa have a back-up battery. The battery kicks in when the power supply is disrupted by load shedding.
At times, the prolonged period of rolling blackouts has hindered the batteries from fully recharging. The batteries take up to 18 hours to recharge.
However, with the current schedule that consists of up to over 10 hours and changes daily, the back-ups do not have enough time to recharge effectively.
Overworked batteries can fail, and constant restarts put additional strain on the equipment. This means that network outages will generally be more frequent during load shedding.
When load shedding happens, many fibre users lose their network. This is because when the electricity comes back, too many users try to reconnect at the same time. This causes a significant delay because the systems that control the network become overwhelmed.
What are the solutions?
Since load shedding shows no signs of stopping, it would be useful to invest in signal boosters and directional antennas.
These can be beneficial during load shedding or power outages in the event that the outages affect the network.
Signal boosters and directional antennas enhance the signal reception for cell phones and other wireless communication devices, improving your ability to make calls or access data services during power disruptions.
IOL