12 November 2012 Cable theft disrupts services in Pretoria

Telkom services in the Mountainview and Suiderberg areas in Pretoria have been disrupted following an incident of multiple cable theft in the Daspoort exchange area. Over 1500 corporate and residential customers have been affected by yet another incident of this crippling crime.

During the early hours of Friday morning, 9 November 2012, cable thieves cut and removed three major copper cables servicing the area.

The cable thieves gained access through two lockable manhole lids to remove 100 meters of a 1200 pair cable and 800 pair cable. The thieves also cut a 1400 pair cable but were only able to make off with 15 metres of the cable.

Customers with the exchange code 377 and 379 in the Mountainview and Suiderberg areas are affected.

"We apologise for the inconvenience brought on our customers by this crime and assure the community that the crime has been reported and a police investigation is currently underway," said Theo Hess, Telkom Managing Executive for Network Field Services.

"Telkom has deployed several teams over the weekend to restore affected services as soon as possible," he added. The services will be progressively restored until close of business on Friday, 16 November 2012.

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
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).
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