Switchboard hinders West Rand police

By Leon Engelbrecht for Telkom
Johannesburg, 13 Dec 2007

Police are urging West Rand residents to phone their local police stations in case of emergency, as the switchboard for the region`s 10111 contact centre is out of order.

Police spokesman Eugene Opperman says the contact centre, in Krugersdorp, serves an area including Randfontein, Roodepoort and Honeydew.

"They are working on the problem," he says.

Police initially thought the problem was on the Telkom lines to the contact centre, but the telecoms giant`s group executive for corporate communications Lulu Letlape says technicians found this was not the case.

"The company`s high-level support specialists have investigated the matter and have concluded that there were no related faults on the Telkom network. The fault, as suspected, was found on the customer`s switchboard. The customer`s switchboard vendor has since alleviated the problem," she says.

The Krugersdorp contact centre is slated for closure and should already have shut down, with its services migrated to the new R600 million contact centre in Midrand. It was one of six serving the people of the province.

The police intend consolidating the staff and function of all six in the Midrand centre. Opperman says the Pretoria, East Rand, Vaal and Soweto contact centres have already closed. Johannesburg and Krugersdorp will shut up shop in the new year.

Opperman blamed technical difficulties for the delay. Police officers speaking at the official opening of the Midrand centre in late October said they and Altech - the vendor - were having trouble finding mast sites in Johannesburg for the terrestrial trunked radio (Tetra) network that forms part of the project.

The rub of the problem, they said, was landowner and neighbourhood objections to the masts, as well as environmental concerns.

The older contact centres use analogue pre-Tetra technology that is not being migrated to the Midrand contact centre, so the Brixton and Krugersdorp centres may have to remain open until the mast site trouble is resolved.