Telecommunications giant Telkom could have built 35 to 40 base stations with the money spent on replacing the 7 841 stolen batteries last year.

Telkom mobile networks managing executive Hugo van Zyl said that the scale of theft and vandalism of South Africa’s network sites is “enormous” and the cost of repairing and protecting its sites affects the ability to roll out connectivity in areas that need it most.

The repairs, often at incredibly short notice, to restore connectivity have a significant impact on the operating costs of the business, he said, noting that the running costs to repair reach up to 20% of its business-as-usual capital expenditure and the group spends vast amounts of money to maintain and protect the sites.

Most cases of damage or vandalism involve criminals, most often criminal syndicates, who break into shelters at mast sites to steal valuable material such as batteries, which are used as back-up power sources, copper cable or specialised radio equipment.

“Damage and theft of all of these elements have varying impacts on service levels provided by radio sites. Sometimes, there is also wilful, malicious damage at the site.”

While a nearby Telkom or a roaming partner’s site can take over the service of a damaged base station, with load-shedding, or in the case of multiple vandalised sites in a cluster area, neighbouring sites cannot “cover for each other” and the vandalism will lead to outages on Telkom’s mobile network in that area.

“Even where other operators are possibly able to support the network, there might be issues with back-up power: vandalism and theft of infrastructure impacts all operators in South Africa. As such there are often overall disruptions to mobile networks during load-shedding because batteries have been stolen or vandalised,” Van Zyl commented.

The opportunity cost of vandalism is real. It reduces affordable, accessible digital coverage and limits progress for South Africans.

“Today, mobile connectivity is the key to schooling, training, tertiary education, job search and remote working. Vandalism means South Africans that need opportunities the most are unable to access them. Connectivity has been even more crucial during the pandemic,” he concluded, urging citizens to report any suspected site vandalism on the Telkom hotlines.