Walking the streets in search of coverage for mobile phones is common practice in many rural areas in Bulgaria. In this situation, how can people rely on the BG alert system? DV turned to the three telecoms:
Walking 27km of streets in winter to check on people at home, as there is no electricity and mobile phones are not working, is not an easy task. The mayor of Veliko Tarnovo's Novo Selo, Hristo Hristov, told Deutsche Welle (DV) about the difficult situation at the end of November this year, when the village was without electricity for 48 hours because of the snow, and he went from house to house. “27 kilometers of street network - and I can't call 112”, says Hristov, who is also a member of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Mayors of City Halls (NSKK).
“We are alone and it is better to know that it is so. We'll handle it ourselves, just assuming we're not waiting for anything else”. This is how the mayor addressed the local people on Facebook. “Bukovets in the municipality of Veliko Tarnovo has had no coverage since the telephone was invented,” wrote a user under his post. “We are with you, mayor!”
"The Rural" problems that the authorities do not hear
“Village mayors”, as they are called, have been trying for two years to put the problem of network security in small villages on the agenda of the institutions, when the electricity supply is interrupted, and Hristo Hristov is one of the most active. His proposal to oblige mobile operators to maintain an alternative energy device when renting out municipal property is being considered by a committee of the Municipal Council of Veliko Tarnovo.
About 500 people are registered in Novo Selo according to address registration, but in reality there are much more - there are 50 foreigners and many others, among them also young families who are part of the new wave of returning to the village and a more peaceful life . How much calmer without communications when needed?
This year alone, the association of town halls signaled the Communications Regulatory Commission (CRC), which is responsible for the control of communications security, the ministers of the interior and defense, the chairmen of DANS and the State Agency “Electronic Government”. The National Association of Municipalities, Parliamentary Committees. Attached to the alert are 26 specific examples with dates and time ranges of no signal during power outages for each mobile operator. Among the dry enumeration is the following text: “In the village of Vetrintsi, the range of all operators is very bad, especially as can be seen in cases where there is no electricity supply. In an emergency there is no connection at all!” In another village of Veliko Tarnovo - Strelets, the BNR reported how people roam the streets and under the trees to look for a range where there is one, to have a conversation or to report someone in trouble. And in addition to the lack of mobile coverage for the 250 inhabitants of Strelets, they are also tormented by terrible drought.
When asked by Deutsche Welle what measures the KRS took in response to the signals from the town halls about the lack of a network after a power cut, they answered that “during the inspections, the KRS found that the base stations of the mobile operators were factory-equipped with spare feeders, such as base stations and those in remote areas are equipped with diesel generators.
In the event of a security-related incident, national roaming is provided to access the single European emergency number 112, with only emergency traffic being given priority, the response said. The regulator also explains that when the electricity supply is stopped, there is no way for mobile operators to provide an uninterrupted service and the measures they are taking cannot be a real alternative to the public service provided by the electricity distribution companies.
Deutsche Welle asked KRS and what is the maximum distance from a user's telephone set to a “live“ cell of a mobile operator, in which the ability to make an outgoing call to the emergency number 112 is guaranteed? Received the following response: “A call to the emergency number 112 from a mobile phone is possible when the caller is in a mobile network coverage area.
Mobile operators are obliged to maintain technical capability for emergency calls and when the caller is in the coverage area of another operator, other than the one providing services to the caller.
To the same question, Yettel Bulgaria answered that emergency calls to 112 can be made with the lowest possible signal strength, and voice calls are possible even at a distance of 35 km from the mobile cell. According to A1, in theory the distance can be about 40 km, but in practice it is difficult to determine a value, as it depends on many factors - the geographical relief, natural and artificial obstacles, type of vegetation, seasonality, materials used for building structures, functional possibilities of the telephone itself, etc.
Users can call 112 as long as there is coverage of one of the operators in the area, even without a SIM card.
What's happening in Voden
Telecoms are required to have backup power, especially important in crisis situations where an early warning system would save lives. In the Yambol border village of Voden, which was severely affected by fires in July, the BG-ALERT disaster early warning and evacuation system did not work because it was not activated by the mayor. For this to happen, a municipality, regional administration or ministry must report to the fire department, and the fire department, if it decides, to the telecoms that play the messages on the phones. (Training is required before that, but as it turned out, only the mayor of Stara Zagora, Zhivko Todorov, requested it). But even if the disaster notification had been sent in Voden, the local people had no way of seeing the message, as their mobile phones were practically useless after the power cut.
After the fires in Voden, a new mobile cell was urgently installed in the area in less than 24 hours. The press center of the official transport minister, Georgi Gvozdeikov, announced that the three telecoms - A1, Vivacom and Yettel, “are taking urgent steps to improve the state of communications in the village of Voden and several neighboring villages”.
“After they installed the mobile cell, the signal from two telecoms went bad, and in order to catch a signal from the third (A1, b.a.) you have to go around and look for high places around Voden,” Elena explained to Deutsche Welle Aneva, who was mayor of Voden for 26 years. About 350 people are listed in Voden, but no more than two hundred live there.
We talk with Aneva herself on a landline, as there is no connection with the mobile. She explains that as mayor she has been unsuccessfully looking for a solution to the problem for years. “They come, they promise - and in the end nothing. They say that the problem was with the border communications, but as soon as we leave the village, Turkish Telecom immediately “catch”.
What did the telecoms answer
Deutsche Welle sent an inquiry to the three telecoms in Bulgaria with the same questions, the first of which is how they ensure the security of the communications network - given their obligations under the Electronic Communications Act.
A1 replied that they carry out continuous monitoring in 24/7 mode, and the continuity of their mobile network is 99.9%. In case of equipment failure, spare modules and duty teams are provided to replace it. Security systems have been installed at some stations. All macro base stations are powered by rechargeable batteries to last a minimum of 4 hours, depending on the traffic load of the respective cell, climatic conditions, etc. At critical sites, after the expiry of this redundancy, diesel generators are also used until the normal power supply is restored. At some stations there are also photovoltaics.
Vivacom explained that they have about 3,000 base stations, all equipped with batteries. In the event of a power outage, depending on location and load, they can provide 2 to 8 hours of coverage. The telecom invests in the replacement of over 700 batteries per year. In the busiest areas and in hard-to-reach places, the stations are also equipped with diesel generators, and some of the mobile towers also have solar panels.
Yettel Bulgaria also uses batteries to provide additional backup power to its over 3,000 base stations. Backup generators are also used in over 400 remote locations. The base stations are designed so that even in the absence of power they can continue to operate autonomously for an hour and a half to 4 hours, depending on the load in the area, and those for which generators are also provided - up to several days, the telecom said .
If everything is fine, then why are the mayors complaining? The state owes answers, because the control is its own, the MP from "Vazrazhdane" told Deutsche Welle. Angel Yanchev. He asked Gvozdeikov already on July 24 how the Ministry of Transport controls whether mobile operators fulfill the legal requirements for providing back-up power supply and communication connectivity on the territory of the country. It also asks if the BG-ALERT system is fully completed and fully functional.
There are no answers. But given the frequent disasters, they cannot be avoided for long.
*** This comment expresses the personal opinion of the author and may not coincide with the positions of the Bulgarian editorial office and DV as a whole.