Telecommunications operators, including MTN South Africa, Vodacom, Telkom, Cell C and Liquid Intelligent Technologies, have teamed up to form a new nonprofit organisation to tackle the risks impacting on the telecommunications industry in South Africa.

The newly formed Communication Risk Information Centre (COMRiC) aims to focus on the sector’s collective identification, mitigation and prevention of the common risk issues within the industry.

A key focus for 2022 will be centred on critical infrastructure network vandalism, commercial crimes and cybersecurity.

“The formation of COMRiC has enabled formal discussions and solution-finding between operators to handle the risks they face. It has also created a platform through which we will engage society on issues of related crime and support government in the overall fight against crime in South Africa,” explains COMRiC CEO Vernall Muller.

The collaboration between the network operators to fight theft and network infrastructure vandalism has resulted in the establishment of the Critical Infrastructure Monitoring Operations Centre (CiMOC), which operates under the newly formed COMRiC structure.

The CiMOC will prioritise the collective monitoring of critical network infrastructure theft and vandalism across the combined telecommunications network footprint in South Africa.

“This includes working closely with the South African Police Service to identify and apprehend suspects in network vandalism, store robberies, battery theft and fraudulent application scenarios, including commercial crimes, among other things,” says Muller.

The formation of the new structure is in line with efforts to better protect the operators’ network investments – and advance the country’s participation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution – as the industry battles criminal activity, particularly over the past two years.

The economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and load- shedding and related power cuts are factors that have contributed to this upsurge, Muller comments.

“Telecommunications infrastructure, which is the backbone of the information age, is particularly vulnerable to attack and this escalating crime has translated into loss of service and network integrity.

“The industry recognises that criminals do not discriminate when it comes to which network they target. As such, collective working as the telecommunications industry provides benefits in terms of risk management for all operators irrespective of market share,” says Muller.

The opportunity exists for creating a safer environment that may lead to uninterrupted customer experience in the telecommunications space.