Three thousand Telkom customers, including medical centres and shopping centres, in Pretoria, South Africa, have had their services cut by cable thieves and may be down for a week.
The cable theft took place yesterday (Thursday) morning when two manholes were opened close to the Akasia exchange by the criminals who then cut 11 cables and made off with around 363 metres of Telkom’s hardware.
Theo Hess, Telkom managing executive for network field services, said: “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 the Telkom 24 hour crime/fraud hotline number 0860 124 000.”
HumanIPO reported last month theft of copper had fallen in May by US$100,000 according to the South African chamber of commerce.
In May more than 2,000 Telkom customers in Johannesburg were affected for three days by service disruption because of cable theft.
The part state-owned ADSL provider said several teams were working on the affected services and they expected it to be fully restored by Wednesday next week.
The incident has been reported to the police.
