TAMPERING with the underground fibre optic transmission cable between Gobabis and Witvlei saw a blackout in telecommunications service in most of eastern Namibia recently.
Customers in the Gobabis, Buitepos, Talismanus, Epukiro and Otjinene areas experienced a telecommu-nications service disruption of more than 27 hours, which was restored on 16 August 2007. The next day, the same fibre optic cable was severed shortly after 15h40 – again causing telephony, internet and data circuits to go down when the optic fibre cable was damaged.
Both disruptions were caused by acts of vandalism of the optic fibre transmission network on the western edge of Gobabis, next to the main road to Witvlei. In the first case, the cable was taken out of a manhole, crushed with an unknown object against a rock. In the second incident, the temporary connection fibre was merely cut-off with a sharp object.
Similar acts of vandalism occurred on the overhead optic fibre route about five km south of Otjiwarongo on the road to Kalkfeld, when on 6 June 2007 a pole was removed which damaged the fibre cable and causing a service interruption of approximately five hours. On 6 June 2007, 300 metre of overhead fibre cable had to be replaced after the overhead fibre cable was cut off at two places, in a deliberate attempt of vandalism, causing a total outage in transmission to the North East and Far North areas of more than 10 hours.
Even though everything is back to normal by now, such mindless acts of vandalism by some unknown miscreants is causing major disruption to many businesses and home telephone lines. In fact, vandalism, as well as theft, has become a matter of serious concern to the Company.
Since mid-March 2007 Telecom Namibia also fell victim to the unscrupulous stealing of solar panels, mainly in the Kunene Region towards the North and South of Opuwo. These deplorable acts caused small communities, mining operations as well as lodges and other players in the tourism industry, which are situated in these very remote and rural areas, tremendous inconvenience as telephone services were disrupted for weeks on end.
Solar Panel theft also occurred on 4 July 2007 at a Telecom Namibia microwave trans-mission an establishment situ-ated about 50km east of Walvis Bay in the Namib-Naukluft Park, thereby affecting the total telecommunications to the Langer Heinrich Uranium mine.
Telecommunications infra-structure is considered public property of strategic importance, and the Postal & Telecommunications Act, makes it a crime to vandalise such infrastructure (or to injure, deface or destroy any related equipment on the network infrastructure).
Telecom Namibia encourages members of the public to immediately report theft, tampering or destruction of telecommunications equipment to Telecom Namibia or the nearest Police Station. These acts of vandalism, to be considered as sabotage against the Namibian national infrastructure, are crimes and Telecom Namibia requires the assistance from the community at large to provide information to the Company, in order to adequately address them with the aid of the Namibian Police. Your cooperation will help the Namibian Police to quickly initiate investigations, apprehend the culprits and prosecute them in our courts of law.
Telecom Namibia offers cash rewards of up to N$20,000 for information which leads to the apprehension and conviction of any person or persons responsible for committing crimes of vandalism or theft on the Telecom network.
Should you have knowledge on any of the above-mentioned acts of vandalism and theft, or any other incident not mentioned herein, you are encouraged to contact Telecom Namibia at 0800-247365 at all time, alternatively your nearest Police station, to share such detail and thereby assisting ourselves the Namibia nation and Telecom Namibia to safeguard and maintain our economical backhaul infra-structures for the wellbeing of our people, our country and our economy.