You are here: > About Us > Media Centre > Archive

07 June 2012

Multiple cable theft in Springs

Telkom services in Springs, east of Johannesburg, have been disrupted following an incident of multiple cable theft in the area. Over 1000 corporate and residential customers have been affected by this crippling crime.

On Wednesday, 6 June, cable thieves broke into Telkom's underground infrastructure access to cut and remove the cables feeding seven street distribution cabinets in surrounding areas. Telkom has reported the crime and a police investigation is currently underway.

The suburbs of Casseldale and Strubenvale with telephone codes 815, 812 and 362 have been affected.

"We apologise to customers who have been affected by this incident of cable theft. Business and residential customers are severely affected due to an alarming amount of copper cable theft that results in service interruptions.

The severity of the impact is due to the fact that ICT services are a vital component to the running of businesses and an integral part of everyday living," says Theo Hess, Telkom Managing Executive for Network Field Services.

"Our technicians have already begun working on restoring services in the area and remain committed to progressively restoring all services by Monday, 11 June.Telkom has also increased security measures in the area to discourage any recurrences of this crime in the area," he adds.

Working closely with the Non-Ferrous Theft Combating Committee (NFTCC) Business Against Crime and the South African Police Services, Telkom's network protection efforts have resulted in 295 arrests over the past six months.

In our ongoing efforts to counter the scourge of copper cable theft, explains 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.
  • 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

Telkom Park, The Apex

92 Oak Avenue

Technopark

Highveld

Centurion

ABOUT TELKOM:

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.

As of 30 September 2015, we had approximately 3.3 million telephone access lines in service and 1,030,441 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 navbar-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 Connexion 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.