Persistent power outages have added to the high cost of doing business in Africa, as most mobile phone service providers and business process outsourcing facilities are forced to use generators to power installations.
This has led operators including MTN to increase investments in renewable energy technologies in order to avoid reliance on the national grid.
The power outages are taking place at a time when the region is trying to convince international companies to invest in the telecom sector in order to improve communications, especially in rural areas of the continent.
Many African governments face the challenge of raising funds to invest in power generation to ensure sufficient electricity to support the growth of the telecom sector.
According to a recent report by the African Development Bank (AfDB), more than 30 African countries are now experiencing power shortages and regular interruptions in telecom services. Frequent power outages, the report said, means lost sales and damaged equipment.
Executive Vice Chairman, Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Eugene Juwah said poor power supply is a direct cause of poor services by mobile phone operators.
“The greatest threat to the growth of telecoms and information technology sectors is the insufficient power supply. Only (the) elimination of this problem will provide the critical success factor in finally eradicating quality of service challenges,” Juwah said.
Nigeria is Africa’s largest telecom market by investment and subscription, with over 140 million mobile phone subscribers.
In Zambia, the situation remains almost the same with that of Nigeria. Her Minister of Communications and Transport Yamfwa Mukanga, said lack of power from the national grid remains a challenge to achieving the plan of rolling out effective communication services to rural areas.
Many of the communication towers built by the Zambian government to provide rural areas with communication services are not used due to lack of power supply from the national grid.
While experts have blamed African governments for failing to liberalise the energy sector, the way the telecom sector has been liberalised, so as to encourage private investment and competition, Nigeria’s experience may have proved them wrong.
Former President Good;uck Jonathan embarked on a far reaching power sector reform started by former President Olusegun Obasanjo that culminated in the sale of successor firms of the defunct state-run but largely inefficient power octopus, Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN). The firms which were allegedly sold to the cronies of the former president, also received huge cash backing from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to fix obsolete infrastructure-a development that had been widely denounced as akin to selling one’s disused car and making cash available to the buyer to run the car.
Power generation to the national grid remains, at its peak, a little less than 3,000 megwatts (Mw) for about 200million population. This is hardly able to take care of the energy needs of a state such as Lagos.