As Eskom battles to keep South Africa’s lights on amid ageing and failing energy infrastructure, it has emerged that its internal telecommunications network that provides critical information and communication technology (ICT) services to the utility had reached the end of its life and is in desperate need of a revamp.

Despite refurbishing much of the network that supplied critical services to over 1 400 nodes, more had to be done to avoid the “devastating failure” of the communications channels.

Speaking at the Africa Utilities Telecom Summit, in Sandton, Eskom transmission group executive Mongezi Ntsokolo said that, while the utility’s capacity expansion programme was under way to alleviate electricity constraints, the State-owned group was now facing the challenge of an ageing telecommunications network, which was reaching the end of its life.

Eskom’s own-operated fibre-optic telecommunications network currently provided ICT services for critical operational systems and distribution links and communications across 1 400 nodes comprising power stations, substations and office operations, besides others.

“The loss of [the] critical telecommunications [network] would be devastating,” Ntsokolo warned.

However, Eskom had, in 2011, developed a long-term telecommunications framework to revive the network, which was 80% obsolete.

The framework outlined the upgrade and integration of Eskom’s telecommunications assets in support of an integrated ICT solution that incorporated future trends, such as smart grids.

The utility aimed to migrate its network to a fully packet-based network, with plans to have an entirely fibre-optic-based backbone by 2017.

The 2011 review showed Ekom boasting 5 500 km of fibre-optic cable in the network.

The group’s access network would be a combination of fibre and radio infrastructure, Ntsokolo said.

However, the transformation “was not at the pace” Eskom desired, owing to financial constraints, with the utility “working hard” to secure funding.