Vodacom South Africa has said it has seen a spike in battery theft and vandalism at its base stations in some parts of the country in the lead-up to the festive season.

The criminal activity is more prevalent in some regions than others, it said – and it warned the problem is industry wide and not only affects telecommunications operators.

“Battery theft and vandalism at base stations continues to be a huge challenge for the telco sector,” Vodacom said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Although incidents of battery theft and vandalism have been stable in some regions with no significant increase in the amount of incidents being experienced, in September alone our operations in KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and northern Gauteng recorded the highest number of attempted thefts,” it said.

“These criminal activities cause disruptions to network services, resulting in frequent downtime for customers. The consequences go beyond the costs of repairing and restoring infrastructure. They have a significant impact on communities that depend on connectivity as a vital lifeline,” said Vodacom Group chief risk officer Johan van Graan.

Vodacom said it loses about R100-million to vandalism and battery theft each year. The cost of restoring connectivity after such incidents can cost up to R100 000 per site, depending on the extent of the damage and the location.

Stable

“Incidents of battery theft have been stable with no significant increase in this financial year. We attribute this to multiple factors which include, but are not limited to, the increase of site hardening where sites become more of a security vault to protect the infrastructure from thieves, cementing the batteries in vaults and installing concrete cubes to house batteries, to the use of hi-tech security technologies deployed on sites to detect and deter the criminal elements,” said Vodacom.

“Our community engagement initiative, where we have partnered with local communities and work with police to serve as monitoring personnel to help safeguard our sites, has yielded positive results. Critically, our partnership with private security companies and law enforcement agencies has been a major contributor in preventing break-ins and led to successful arrests of criminals and prosecution,” said Van Graan.

Read: The crime problem crippling Eskom and Transnet

High copper prices aren’t helping. The skyrocketing price of the metal has emboldened thieves to steal infrastructure that impacts the electricity grid and critical services such as hospitals, railways and telecoms in parts of the country,” said Vodacom. – © 2024 NewsCentral Media

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