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03 August 2016

Telkom in Limpopo hit by sabotage

Thousands of mobile network users and fixed line customers in Limpopo were yesterday left without connectivity following a serious incident of sabotage to the Telkom network.

Most of the mobile operators have been affected by the sabotage, along with businesses and individual consumers, in the province.

“Technicians were immediately despatched to the sites where the fibre cables were cut and they have been working through the night to restore connectivity”, said Jacqui O’Sullivan, Telkom Group spokesman.

“Three significant cable breaks occurred but this was not cable theft. This was the targeted and considered action of a person or persons who knew where to go, how to access the fibre and how to do the most damage. This was sabotage”, she said.

Telkom has reported the matter to the South African Police Services as well as the Department of State Security. State security services have immediately bolstered security at key communication points and Telkom is cooperating with the authorities to share all information that could be used to identify the saboteurs.

Telkom has also announced a R250 000 reward for any information leading to the successful prosecution of the perpetrators of this sabotage.

“The Criminal Matters Amendment Act has created a new offence to criminalise damage to essential infrastructure or interfering with the functioning of basic services through criminal activity. We will vigorously pursue this investigation and will make sure that the full might of the law is brought to bear on any person involved in this crime,” said O’Sullivan.

Any information, related to this or other crimes on Telkom’s infrastructure, may be reported to the Telkom emergency hotline on 0800 124 000.

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

ABOUT TELKOM:

Telkom is a leading communications services provider in South Africa. We had consolidated operating revenue of R37.3 billion and normalised profit after tax of R4,052 million for the year ended 31 March 2016. Total assets amounted to R46.8 billion and equity attributable to the owners of Telkom to R26.1 billion as of 31 March 2016. The group generated normalised free cash flow of R3.9 billion for the year ended 31 March 2016.

As of 31 March 2016, we had approximately 3.2 million telephone access lines in service and 1,077,939 ports connected via MSAN access. We offer business, residential and payphone customers a wide range of services and products, including:

  • fixed-line retail voice services using PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) lines, including ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) lines, and the sale of subscription based value-added voice services and calling plans;
  • fixed-line customer premises equipment rental and sales services both voice and data needs and these include PABX, Computers, Routers, Modems, Telephone handsets and other ancillary equipment;
  • interconnection services, including terminating and transiting traffic from South African mobile operators, as well as from international operators and transiting traffic from mobile to international destinations;
  • fixed-line data services, including domestic and international data transmission services, such as point-to-point leased lines, ADSL (Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) services, packet-based services, managed data networking services and internet access and related information technology services;
  • Data Centre Operations includes e-commerce, application service provider, hosting, data storage, e-mail and security services;
  • W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access), a 3G next generation network, including fixed voice services, data services and nomadic voice services;
  • mobile communication services, including voice services, data services and handset sales through our mobile brand called Telkom Mobile;
  • information and communication services including cloud services, infrastructure services, workspace services, global service integration management and hardware and network equipment sales locally, in seven African countries, the UK and Dubai through Business Connextion Group; and
  • other services including directory services, through Trudon (Pty) Ltd, wireless data services, through Swiftnet (Pty) Ltd.
  • Convergence is one of our key strategic initiatives in building a sustainable future for Telkom. We will lead the provision of converged services in South Africa in support of our mission statement: Seamlessly connecting people to a better life.