According to a report by the National Commission for the State Regulation of Electronic Communications, Radio Frequency Spectrum and Postal Services (NCCS), Ukrainian mobile operators are still not ready for three-day power outages.
It is noted that in order to keep Ukrainians connected, several solutions were developed in the first days of the war, including the introduction of national roaming.
Thus, on 7 March 2022, mobile operators launched a national roaming service, which is still in operation today and has become very useful during emergency power outages and in other cases. During the difficult months of power outages, about 2.2 million Ukrainians used the national roaming service every day.
"But this is not a panacea for each operator's network, and after the first blackouts of 2022, it became clear that we need to prepare systematically and accumulate the necessary reserves of autonomy of the operators' networks and be ready to provide Ukrainians with communication for at least three days without power supply," the report says.
The main indicators of the operators' networks' readiness for blackouts are:
the number of power generators to provide communications for critical facilities in each region;
the level of fuel and lubricants supply for backup power sources;
the number of stand-alone power supply sources and their backup for facilities in each region;
operators' readiness to respond promptly to the loss of reserves and replace faulty generators.
During unscheduled supervisory activities, the commission's officers check the actual state of technical means that provide uninterrupted communication. They also visit the operator's communication facilities directly, and, if necessary, conduct radio frequency monitoring using measuring devices.