Staff Reporter
Since the advent of the festive season, Telecom Namibia has been experiencing a number of service disruptions affecting dozens of customers mainly due to the theft of copper wires. Copper wire theft poses a serious threat to service experiences and related economic activities, resulting in the disruption of network availability, loss in revenue, customer frustration and increased costs of replacing the lost equipment.
Telecom Namibia has, therefore, cautioned scrap metal dealers not to buy stolen copper wires, and for transport operators or cargo carriers not to transport illegal copper products. Similarly, potential thieves are equally warned that stealing copper wire from the national telecommunications network is an illegal exercise, and can land perpetrators in jail.
Stanley Shanapinda, Telecom Namibia’s Chief Executive Officer, has noted that thieves are stealing not only copper cables but also batteries and solar panels, in the process damaging fences and locks, and in some instances even engaging in the destruction of facilities at base stations. “Telecom has reported a high number of incidents of criminals targeting the company’s infrastructure. This clearly shows that criminals are causing serious damage to the Telecom Namibia networks through copper theft and sheer vandalism, resulting in downtime for customers and costing the company millions. This directly affects our quality of service and customer experience in the affected areas”, he stated.
The CEO said this theft hits customers hard, as network damage results in service unavailability, impacts on emergency services as well as on businesses using the affected networks. He thus urged communities to be vigilant as the ramifications of theft and/or vandalism are felt by everybody. “We urge communities to be vigilant and report any suspicious activities or malpractices around the Telecom Namibia infrastructure to the nearest police station.”
With hundreds of kilometres of cable running underground and on poles to provide telecommunications services in Namibia, Telecom Namibia said it is impracticable and impossible to provide security to protect all of this infrastructure.
“We, therefore, call on all Namibians to exercise patriotism and be a watchdog to safeguard our national telecommunications backbone in their best interest of retaining reliable and efficient communication in the country, especially during a time when voice and internet connectivity is an essential service due to pandemic and other critical communication needs,” said Telecom Namibia spokesperson Tracy Schaller.