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30 May 2012

Cable theft scourge plagues Bromhof

The area of Bromhof, Johannesburg, has again been hit by cable theft which has led to the disruption of services of over 1600 business and residential customers. This is the second time this month that the area has fallen victim to this crime and Telkom has now increased security measures in Bromhof and surrounding areas.

“Telkom is greatly concerned of the pattern that is emerging in this area and is committed to working with police in the area to curb any recurrences,” says Theo Hess, Telkom Managing Executive for Network Field Services.

“The patterns do tend to change quite quickly however and the criminals rapidly move their areas of attack when the security is tightened in a particular area,” he adds.

The latest incident occurred on Tuesday, 29 May, when cable thieves broke through a concrete manhole roof covering and lock to steal Telkom’s underground cable infrastructure. Telkom has reported the crime and a police investigation is currently underway.

The following suburbs in the Bromhof area with the exchange code 791, 792 and 793, have been affected by this theft: Boskruin; Sonneglans; Golden Harvest and a portion of Northworld.

"Copper cable theft remains a major inhibitor to Telkom’s capability to maintain and improve service levels. We appeal to residents in this area to be on high alert and to report any suspicious activity to Telkom 24 hour crime/fraud hotline number 0800 124 000,” advises Mr Hess.

Telkom has commenced the restoration process and services will progressively be restored by close of business on Friday, 1 June. We apologise for the inconvenience caused by this outage and we assure customers that we are doing all that we can to curb any further cable theft in the area.”

In our efforts to counter the scourge of copper cable theft nationally, explains Hess, Telkom has adopted various interventions, which include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Proactively alarming critical and sensitive cable routes and employing services of armed security firms.
  • Deploying various wireless technologies that are alternatives to copper.
  • Assessing vulnerable aerial cable routes and, where feasible, these are buried underground.
  • Working closely with the Non-Ferrous Theft Combating Committee (NFTCC) under the auspices of Business Against Crime and the South African Police Services, to jointly find ways of protecting our cable network.
  • Implementing a national campaign to raise awareness of the Company’s toll-free crime-report line (0800124000) as the co-operation and support of all communities is vital in stamping out cable theft. All members of the public are urged to assist Telkom by making use of this number if they see any suspicious activities.

Affected customers do qualify for pro-rata rebates on their line rentals. Currently customers are advised to call our Billing Enquiries Service on 10210 to enquire about such rebates for the period during which their lines were non-functional. Ordinarily, once an account of a service is linked to a bulk-fault, the credit is automatically passed to the customer.

For further enquiries, please contact:

Pynee Chetty

Senior Specialist: Media Relations

Group Communication

Tel:+27 12 642 1716

Mobile: +27 81 389 7874

Email: chettpr2@telkom.co.za

 OR

Leigh-Ann Francis

Specialist: Media Relations

Group Communication

Tel: +27 12 642 1728

Mobile: +27 81 391 4780

Email: francilm@telkom.co.za

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Telkom is a leading communications services provider in South Africa. We had consolidated operating revenue of R16.8 billion and normalised profit after tax of R1, 683 million for the period ended 30 September 2015. Total assets amounted to R41.9 billion and equity attributable to the owners of Telkom to R23.5 billion as of 30 September 2015. The group generated normalised free cash flow of R1.4 billion for the period ended 30 September 2015.

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