As the festive season approaches, Vodacom has noticed an increase in the number of battery theft and vandalism incidents on its base stations. The company is appealing to all stakeholders, from law enforcement to communities, to help in combatting these incidents.
“Battery theft and vandalism at our base stations continues to be a huge challenge for the telco sector,” says Johan van Graan, chief risk officer at Vodacom Group. “Although incidents of battery theft and vandalism have been stable in some regions with no significant increase in the amount of incidents being experienced, in September alone our operations in KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and Northern Gauteng regions recorded the highest number of attempted thefts, each accounting for 40% or more of such incidents.
“These criminal activities cause disruptions to network services, resulting in frequent downtime for customers. The consequences go beyond the costs of repairing and restoring infrastructure. They have a significant impact on communities that depend on connectivity as a vital lifeline.”
Not only do communities rely on cellular services to stay connected, Vodacom loses about R100-million to vandalism and battery theft each year. The cost of restoring connectivity can cost up to R100 000 per site, depending on the extent of the damage and location.
“Incidents of battery theft have been stable with no significant increase in this financial year,” says Van Graan. “We attribute this to multiple factors which include, but are not limited to, the increase of site hardening where sites become more of a security vault to protect the infrastructure from thieves, cementing the batteries in vaults and installing concrete cubes to house batteries, to the use of high-tech security technologies deployed on sites to detect and deter the criminal elements.
“Our community engagement initiative, where we have partnered local communities and work with police to serve as monitoring personnel to help safeguard our sites, has yielded positive results. Critically, our partnership with private security companies and law enforcement agencies has been a major contributor in preventing break ins and led to successful arrests of criminals and prosecution,” he adds.
As the prices of copper has increased substantially, so too have the incidences of copper cable theft.
Vodacom has intensified its defences on all its sites, investing in technology including artificial intelligence (AI). The best defence, however, is community engagement, and Vodacom urges anyone with knowledge of suspicious activity to call the police on 10111, or Vodacom’s toll-free number at0822419952.