Yes, out here in the conurbano I suppose it's somewhat the norm. For us (Florencio Varela), it seems to come in waves. Maybe it's good for a time, then for a few months any touch of wind or storm or peak usage will knock it out. A few years back it was out for over a week, which also knocked out the town's ability to supply water pressure. My inlaws recently bought a new generator, but of course it was delivered with a problem and they have to take it back to be repaired.
Something I noticed recently, doing some electronic projects and paying more attention to it, is the supply is typically very low. Instead of the rated 220V, we are only getting maybe 210V, or sometimes even 198V. So I take that to mean the system is overstretched, trying to supply too many people from an underrated transformer, causing the blowouts that we get so often. It's very common for people out here to get damaged electronics from the surge when it comes back on. I usually turn off my main cutoff whenever there is a brownout, and wait for power to return, then turn my supply back on to avoid the surge. I'm curious if our import restrictions may come into play here - perhaps even the power companies cannot get hold of the equipment and parts they need to keep things running properly?
In the states you could easily buy surge protected power strips, but here they commonly come as a little box (protector de tension) and you can buy a power strip separately. The protectors may come in flavors of baja and alta tension. Baja tension would be more for protection of motors such as your refrigerator - which may burn out drawing too much current if the voltage is low. Alta would be more toward protecting electronics that could be damaged by a surge.
Another issue is that surge protectors shunt the surge to ground, and many older residences here may not have the 3rd ground wire connected, rendering the surge protector somewhat useless. So I would look into that before investing in a surge protector. Not sure if some UPS units might be able to handle that situation or not, but at least it could keep things running while you save your data.
Seems to me that locally produced whole-house surge protectors could be a very good business here in Argentina.
edit: Was just doing some reading online, and it looks like some higher end surge protectors may be able to shunt across to the neutral wire in a non grounded outlet.
