Cable theft encumbers Kyalami Businesses
Telkom's customers in the area of Kyalami, Johannesburg, have become the latest victims of cable theft that disrupted services to thousands of predominately business customers in the area.
Telkom has started the restoration of the affected services and have deployed several teams to expedite the repair process. The 3282 affected services to Business and Corporate customers will be restored progressively until close of business on Thursday 28 June 2012. There was no impact on the Company's residential customers in Kyalami.
On Sunday evening, 24 June 2012, cable thieves broke through a manhole roof in Main Road, Kyalami and cut three main copper cables. Telkom has reported the incident and a police investigation is underway.
The thieves exposed Telkom pipes on the cable run and removed approximately 70 metres of 1200 and 800 pair copper cables. A 2400 pair main cable was also cut in the process.
Customers with the exchange code 466 in the Kyalami Park and Kyalami Business Park areas are affected.
"This crime has seriously affected our customers, especially our business customers. Cable theft results in loss in income for all concerned and ultimately the South African economy suffers," says Theo Hess, Telkom's Managing Executive: Network Field Services.
"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," said Mr Hess.
Copper cable theft remains a major inhibitor to Telkom's capability to maintain and improve service levels. We appeal to customers in this area to be on high alert and to report any suspicious activity to Telkom's 24 hour crime/fraud hotline number 0800 124 000.
In our efforts to counter the scourge of copper cable theft nationally, said Mr 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.
- Working closely with law enforcement agencies to implement and enforce the 2nd hand goods bill.
- 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.
[ENDS]
For further enquiries, please contact:
PYNEE CHETTY
Senior Specialist: Media Relations
Tel.: (012) 311-5247
Cell: 081 389 7874
Email: chettpr2@telkom.co.za
or
LEIGH-ANN FRANCIS
Specialist: Media Relations
Tel.: (012) 311-7114
Cell: 081 391 4780
Email: francilm@telkom.co.za
About Telkom
Telkom is a leading communications services provider in South Africa and on the African continent. We had consolidated operating revenue from continuing operations of R33.1 billion and profit for the year from continuing operations of R179 million for the year ended 31 March 2012. Total assets from continuing operations amounted to R52.6 billion and equity attributable to the owners of Telkom to R29.7 billion as of 31 March 2012. The group generated free cash flow of R2.1 billion for the year ended 31 March 2012.
As of 31 March 2012, we had approximately 4.0 million telephone access lines in service and 99.9% of our telephone access lines were connected to digital exchanges. We offer business, residential and payphone customers a wide range of services and products, including:
- fixed-line subscription and connection services to post-paid, prepaid and private payphone customers using PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) lines, including ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) lines, and the sale of the subscription based value-added voice services and customer premises equipment rental and sales;
- fixed-line traffic services to post-paid, prepaid, and payphone customers, including local, long distance, fixed-to-mobile, international outgoing and international voice-over-internet protocol traffic services;
- 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 centre operations and internet 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;
- e-commerce, including internet access service provider, 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, data services and handset sales through its mobile brand called 8•ta; and
- other services including directory services, through Trudon (Proprietary) Limited, wireless data services, through Swiftnet (Proprietary) Limited and internet services outside South Africa, through iWayAfrica Group (integration of Africa Online Limited and MWEB Africa Limited).