The Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and Modernisation of the State (BMDS) has responded to a query from the AfD parliamentary group: the executive rejects blanket regulations for buffer batteries or emergency generators at mobile phone sites. A nationwide minimum capacity is often only partially or not at all feasible depending on the location, the ministry argues.
Instead, the principle of network operators’ own responsibility under the Telecommunications Act (TKG) remains. When it comes to emergency power supply, technical feasibility at the specific site and overall costs must always be weighed up. The federal government sees no enforcement deficits by mobile operators during the Berlin blackout: hearings had shown that operators fully complied with their legal obligations.
The background is the multi-day power outage in southwest Berlin in early January. After an attack on a cable bridge at the Lichterfelde power plant, around 100,000 people were without electricity for days. In Steglitz-Zehlendorf, the mobile network also collapsed because many transmission masts only had a battery buffer for about 30 minutes. An expert commission of the Berlin Senate had subsequently called for mobile phone sites to be able to survive a power outage of at least 72 hours on their own.
The event does not remain entirely without consequences: the Federal Network Agency and the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) are currently revising the security catalogues to strengthen crisis communication. In parallel, the federal government is examining, as part of the ongoing TKG amendment, whether legal adjustments are necessary.
Source: www.heise.de
