Business Urges State Support to Strengthen Mobile Base Station Resilience After Storm

Lithuanian businesses are urging the government to share the responsibility for bolstering the resilience of critical communication infrastructure, particularly mobile base stations, in the wake of a recent storm. "Telia Lietuva" CEO Giedrė Kaminskaitė-Salters stressed that while operators are making substantial investments in network robustness, the protection of essential infrastructure should be a collective national effort.

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We are constantly preparing for the worst-case scenarios. (...) We have mobilization plans, backup power supply chains, and a generator network. We are investing millions to ensure communication does not break down during a storm or in the event of a possible military conflict.

Kaminskaitė-Salters highlighted that companies like "Telia" are continuously preparing for worst-case scenarios, implementing mobilization plans, backup power supplies, and generator networks. These investments, amounting to millions, aim to ensure uninterrupted service during storms and potential military conflicts. However, she argued that the burden of protecting critical infrastructure should not rest solely on individual companies.

Instead of each operator installing generators at every base station, Kaminskaitė-Salters proposed a nationally coordinated approach. Under this model, mobile brigades equipped with generators, such as those operated by "Energijos skirstymo operatorius" (ESO), could be dispatched to prioritized base stations when electricity supply fails. This could prevent disproportionate costs and logistical challenges for individual operators.

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However, the protection of critical infrastructure is not a matter for individual organizations or sectors. It is a common national task. Or at least it should be.

Darius Kuliešius from the Communications Regulatory Authority (RRT) acknowledged that equipping all 6,000 base stations with generators is impractical and potentially irrational. He suggested a more targeted strategy, focusing on identifying critical locations with the highest risk of power disruption. This would involve collaboration between the state, energy sector, and telecom operators to determine the necessary level of resilience and appropriate backup solutions, which could include large-capacity batteries or other systems, not just generators.

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If our expectation is that all 6,000 base stations should have generators – that is an illogical proposal, as it is physically impossible to install generators and fuel tanks in many infrastructure objects – on buildings, their roofs, towers, and elsewhere.