More than 2 000 businesses and individuals in the north-western suburb of Randburg, in Johannesburg, are without full telecommunications services as a result of cable theft.
Telkom says its services in the Ferndale and Strydom Park areas were disrupted when thieves cut and removed several main cables in the area on Wednesday night. This is the second incident in this area in as many weeks.
Tellkom says customers with the exchange codes (011) 791, 792 and 793 in the Ferndale and Strydom Park extension suburbs are affected. "In total, 2 173 business, corporate and residential customers are affected."
The telecoms operator says it has commenced with restoration of the affected services, which is expected to be completed by the end of the weekend.
Theo Hess, Telkom's managing executive for network field services, says a number of teams have been deployed to work on repairing the damaged cables. "The services will be progressively restored by Sunday, 23 June.
We apologise for the inconvenience caused by this outage and we assure customers that we are doing all that we can to curb any further cable theft in the area," says Hess.
The incidents have been reported to the South African Police Services, which launched an investigation. Telkom's internal security will also conduct its own investigation.
"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 report any suspicious activity to the Telkom 24-hour crime/fraud hotline number 0860 124 000," says Hess.
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