With Ukraine struggling to maintain lines of communication during the war, an army of engineers from the country’s telephone companies was mobilized to help the public.
With Ukraine struggling to maintain lines of communication during the war, an army of engineers from the country’s telephone companies was mobilized to help the public and policymakers stay connected. lost in Russian missile and drone attacks.
Engineers, Who often unseen and unknown in peacetime, often working around the clock to maintain or restore telephone service, sometimes defying a minefield to do so.
After Russian strikes knocked out the power that cell phone towers normally run, they sped up generators to keep the towers running.
Yuriy Dugnist, an engineer with Ukrainian telecommunications company Kyivstar, said: “I know our people – my colleagues – are very exhausted, but they are motivated by the fact that we are doing a job. important matter. to reach a fence in mobile phone tower on the western edge of Kiev, the capital.
Dugrist and his colleagues provided a glimpse into their new daily routine, which involves using an app on their own phones to keep track of which phone towers are in The number of telephone towers in the capital area is receiving power, even during a controlled blackout. to conserve energy or from starter generators to provide backup power.
One entry reads ominously, in English, “Low Fuel.”
Stopping at a service station before their round, team members filled eight 20-litre jerrycan tanks with diesel fuel for a large tank underneath a generator that relayed power to a cell tower 50 meters high in a suburban village without electricity. day.
It is one of many Ukrainian towns with intermittent, or no electricity, after several devastating Russian attacks in recent weeks on the country’s infrastructure – especially factories. electricity.
Kyivstar is the largest of Ukraine’s three main mobile phone companies, with about 26 million customers — or the equivalent of about two-thirds of the country’s population before Russia’s February 24 invasion. pushed millions of people abroad, even as many returned.
Diesel generators had been installed at the base of cell phone towers long before the invasion, but they were rarely used.
Many Western countries have provided similar generators and transformers to help Ukraine keep the electricity running as best as possible after the Russian flash.
After an emergency power outage due to a Russian air strike on 23 November, Kyivstar deployed 15 team Dugrist said engineers have simultaneously mobilized “all of our reserves” to troubleshoot 2,500 mobile stations in their service area.
He recalled rushing to the site where a cell tower was destroyed when Russian forces withdrew from Irpin, a suburb northwest of Kyiv, earlier this year and getting there before Ukrainian minesweepers arrived to clear notice. signal.
The strain the war is putting on Ukraine’s mobile phone networks is said to have pushed up the price of satellite phone alternatives like Elon Musk’s. star link system that the Ukrainian military used during the conflict, now in its 10th month.
Following the widespread infrastructure strikes last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy convened top officials to discuss the restoration work and supplies needed to protect the energy system. and country contact information.
“We pay special attention to the communication system,” he said, adding that regardless of Russia’s intentions, “we must maintain communications.”
