Quick Answer

If your latency spikes at consistent times of day, loadshedding is a strong suspect, especially in SA. Brownouts, switchover surges, and ISP equipment running on backup power all degrade ping and packet stability. A UPS for your router and PC fixes most of it.

How Loadshedding Actually Wrecks Your Ping

When your suburb's grid goes down, the ISP exchange or fibre node often switches to battery or generator backup. Battery undervoltage, switchover transients, and overloaded fallback links all add latency and packet loss. Even if your home is on UPS or inverter, your router talks to equipment upstream that may not be. The result is the classic 50ms-becomes-180ms spike right at the start of your scheduled stage. Streaming and web browsing tolerate it, but online gaming and competitive titles do not.

How to Confirm Loadshedding Is the Cause

Keep a simple log for a week. Note the times your ping or game stability drops, then cross-reference against your Eskom schedule (or use the EskomSePush app). If 80%+ of your spikes line up with your stage windows, you've got your culprit. Run continuous pings to 8.8.8.8 and your game's regional server, and watch for jitter and dropped packets in the 5-15 minutes before and after a switchover. ISP nodes typically take 10-30 minutes after grid restore to fully stabilise.

Fixing Latency During Loadshedding in SA

A quality line-interactive UPS for your router, ONT, and PC is the foundational fix. Mecer, APC, and CyberPower units in the 800VA-1500VA range cover most home setups for 30-90 minutes per session, more than enough to ride out a Stage 4 window. Pair that with a fibre line on a network with strong battery infrastructure (most major ISPs have improved here) and you'll see clean pings even during peak loadshedding hours. Evetech stocks UPS units with same-day metro dispatch, and free delivery over R1,000 on most SKUs.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will a UPS completely eliminate latency spikes during loadshedding?

A UPS keeps your local gear powered and protects against switchover surges, which solves the home-side problem. But if your ISP node is impacted, you'll still see some upstream lag. The combination of a UPS plus an ISP with strong battery backup is what gets you near-normal ping.

What size UPS do I need for my PC and router during gaming?

For a router and ONT alone, 600-800VA is plenty for 2-4 hours. For a router plus monitor plus mid-range PC, look at 1500VA minimum, which gives 30-45 minutes of gaming time. High-end gaming rigs need 2000VA+ or an inverter with deep-cycle battery.

Are there ISPs in SA less affected by loadshedding?

Fibre ISPs running on networks with comprehensive battery backup (most tier-1 SA fibre operators have invested heavily here) handle loadshedding noticeably better than older copper or wireless options. Check your specific area on user reports before switching.

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