Mobile phones could go off the air in Europe this winter if power shortages or energy rationing knock out parts of the wireless networks across the region, according to a Reuters report. Russia’s decision to halt gas supplies via Europe’s key supply route in the wake of the Ukraine conflict has raised the probability of power shortages. In France, the situation is exacerbated by several nuclear power plants shutting down for maintenance.
Telecom industry officials fear a severe winter will test the resiliency of Europe’s telecom infrastructure, forcing operators and governments to deal with the impact. More significantly, several telecom executives have acknowledged that currently there are not enough back-up systems in many European countries to handle power cuts, raising the prospect of widespread mobile phone outages, according to Reuters.
EU countries, including France, Sweden, and Germany, are taking steps to ensure communications continuity even if power cuts exhaust back-up batteries installed at thousands of cell sites across their territory. Europe has nearly 500,000 cell towers. The problem is that most of them have battery backups of just 30 minutes to keep the site operational when the commercial power fails. By contrast, most North American cell sites have 2–4-hour battery reserves and critical locations have backup diesel generators.
In France, electricity distributor Enedis proposed a plan for potential power cuts of up to two hours in a worst-case scenario. General blackouts would affect only parts of the country on a rotating basis. Essential services such as hospitals, police and government will not be impacted. The French Federation of Telecoms (FFT), a lobby group representing mobile network operators Orange, Bouygues Telecom and Altice’s SFR, pressed Enedis to exempt cell sites from the power cuts.
In a statement to Reuters, Enedis said all regular customers were treated on an equal footing in the event of exceptional outages but that it was up to local authorities to add telecom infrastructure to the list of priority customers. French MNOs have roughly 62,000 towers in service. The industry will not be able to equip all sites with new batteries, according to FFT’s president Liza Bellulo.
MNOs in Sweden and Germany have raised similar potential electricity shortage concerns with their governments. Swedish telecom regulator PTS is working with telecom operators and government agencies to find solutions if electricity is rationed. PTS is financing the purchase of transportable fuel stations and mobile base stations to keep cell phones on the air during extended power outages.
Deutsche Telekom operates 33,000 towers in Germany. The company says that it only has enough mobile emergency power systems for a small number of sites at a time but will use backup diesel generators in the event of prolonged power failures.
The Italian telecom lobby told Reuters it wants the mobile network to be excluded from any power cut or energy saving stoppage and will raise the issue with Italy’s new government. The greater concern is that abrupt and frequent power interruptions could cause electronic component failures.
Long-term, European MNOs must reduce their overall network power consumption. One way is to install more power efficient radios. Another technique is to use software that optimizes traffic flow, allowing base stations to “sleep” in light traffic periods and to switch off different spectrum bands when not in use. Telecom operators are also working with national governments to implement contingency plans for maintaining critical communications.
The European electric grid has not been interrupted for decades. As such, most European MNOs have not relied on extensive batteries or backup power generators at cell sites. “We are a bit spoiled maybe in large parts of Europe where electricity is pretty stable and good,” a telecom industry executive said. “The investments in the energy storage area have maybe been less than in some other countries.”
By John Celentano, Inside Towers Business Editor
Reader Interactions