Telecommunications giant Telkom could have built 35 to 40 base stations with the money spent on replacing the 7 841 base-station batteries stolen last year.
Telkom mobile networks managing executive Hugo van Zyl says that the scale of theft and vandalism of South Africa’s network sites is “enormous” and the cost of repairing and protecting 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 says, noting that the running costs to repair reach up to 20% of Telkom’s business-as-usual capital expenditure as the group spends vast amounts of money to maintain and protect its sites.
Most cases of damage or vandalism, often involving criminal syndicates, result in the theft of valuable material such as batteries, which are used as backup power sources, copper cable or specialised radio equipment, at the mast sites.
“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 sites.”
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 backup power; vandalism and theft of infrastructure impacts on 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 comments.
This 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 the ones unable to access them. Connectivity has been even more crucial during the pandemic,” he concludes, urging citizens to report any suspected site vandalism on the Telkom hotlines.