No signal, no service, no internet for contact clients

Vodacom is the country's largest mobile phone provider (according to their ads), but still they can't get the signal towers in order for when there are power outages. Bloemhof town, NW yesterday had a power outage for more than 5 hours. Where we had spent the previous week almost every night without power and signal due to weather. At that time, no one was able to communicate with each other. The police station's phone was also off. In other words, what do you do in the case of Emergency? Our neighborhood watch suggested we get MTN SIM cards. I think every town should file a petition and request that MTN buy out the Vodacom contracts, as MTN clients seem to have signal and no problems.