Alarming levels of theft from base stations is playing hell with load shedding cell reception

per month. Vodacom spent R1 billion on replacing stolen batteries and equipping base stations with diesel generators in just six months in 2020. And incidents of vandalism and theft have increased since South Africa exited hard lockdown.

"Although the vandals and thieves have a direct impact on network availability and stability, load shedding and load reduction, which has increased over the past five years, has emerged as the biggest contributor to our challenges," explains Ernest Paul, MTN SA's general manager for network operations.

Telkom reports that it has been hardest hit by the sudden spike in theft, with 7,841 batteries – an average of 650 a month – stolen in the last year alone. Telkom says it could have built approximately 35 new base stations with the money spent on replacing stolen batteries. . The batteries generally take between 12 and 16 hours to recharge. Extended load shedding hours reduce the batteries' ability to recharge to full capacity and theft further diminishes the coverage area, particularly in regions which rely on single towers.

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