Vodafone Portugal is set to make significant investments in batteries, generators and satellite communications after the massive Iberian blackout on April 28 revealed serious vulnerabilities in the country's telecom infrastructure.
Speaking at the Portuguese Energy Association’s conference, Vodafone CEO Luís Lopes admitted the system was not prepared for a nationwide blackout, and said the infrastructure collapsed under pressure when network traffic tripled, surpassing even New Year’s Eve volumes.
The sudden spike — beginning at 11:33 AM — caused a total breakdown in Vodafone’s services. “It was an absolutely abnormal increase,” Lopes said, calling the outage a wake-up call for national digital resilience.
To prevent future failures, Vodafone will invest in backup power systems across critical nodes, and plans to transition to satellite communications in crisis scenarios, ensuring operational continuity even in the face of nationwide energy loss.
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