Telecommunications group MTN South Africa (SA) has partnered with two businesses – 24Solutions and SAMO Engineering – following its crowd-sourcing call for small businesses with excess generation capacity to further bolster MTN’s network resilience, amid continuing loadshedding.

In July this year, MTN called on businesses with generators to partner with the company as it works to maintain customer connectivity during escalating loadshedding across South Africa.

At the time, MTN SA CEO Charles Molapisi said that the company aimed to turn the power crisis into an opportunity for small businesses by crowd-sourcing generators to further support its network.

“Two businesses – 24Solutions and SAMO Engineering – have stepped up and are now working with MTN as supply partners to provide additional generator capacity,” says Molapisi, noting the priority of ensuring that digital access is maintained, despite the ongoing power crisis.

“We want to ensure customers stay connected, no matter the situation and we are thinking out of the box to find alternative solutions. Collective effort and relentless optimism are needed right now, and I am extremely pleased to see progress on our crowd-sourcing approach to the power crisis we are all facing.”

Along with an aggressive roll-out of batteries, MTN has been reaching out to small businesses to supply generators for its operations to ensure network stability and connectivity can be maintained, as the extent and duration of the ongoing power cuts means battery backup is placed under strain.

“Backup systems generally take 12 to 18 hours to recharge, while batteries have a capacity of about six to 12 hours, and so MTN decided to embark on this initiative to find additional alternative energy sources,” he explains.

Further, amid consistent theft and vandalism of the batteries, the additional generation capacity will also provide a short-term solution to limit the downtime when batteries are being replaced or repaired.

“All of the suppliers in the programme are uniquely positioned as they have the capacity and expertise in the telecommunications sector,” Molapisi comments, pointing out that SAMO Engineering is an enterprise providing holistic engineering integration and consulting services to the telecommunication, rail and power industry and 24Solutions is a leading energy, service and maintenance company operating in the telecommunications sector.

“This successful initiative with small businesses is another way we are trying to help local business, while at the same time supporting the growth of the economy and broadening MTN’s supply chain,” concludes Molapisi.

The company has developed power contingencies in all provinces, including the establishment of war rooms for each region with dedicated staff and network partners focused on restoring major transmission infrastructure and base stations in the face of severe loadshedding.

MTN has also deployed over 2 000 generators to counter the impact of higher-stage loadshedding and is using more than 400 000 litres of fuel a month to keep these generators operational.

Other contingencies in place include the deployment of additional emergency generators and an optimisation of the existing fleet of MTN mobile generators; the withdrawal of field maintenance teams to allow them to be redeployed to focus on site restorations; and the delivery of fuel to all critical facilities to ensure all MTN data centres remain operational.