Like other telcos in South Africa, MTN is bearing the brunt of theft and vandalism of base station infrastructure.
The challenge is being exacerbated by load-shedding, as thieves are now taking advantage of the cover of darkness to target base stations.
Mostly, the criminal syndicates target equipment such as batteries, copper wires and generators.
However, MTN is fighting back against the syndicates by reinforcing security at these critical facilities.
ITWeb yesterday had a tour of one of the vandalised base stations in Soweto.
According to MTN, apart from grappling with power cuts, vandalism is costing the company a fortune.
This year, it has set aside R1.5 billion to fight vandalism and mitigate the effects of load-shedding on its network.
“Since the end of 2021, our network has really been stressed, just like all the networks in South Africa – they have been over-stressed by the power outages,” said Michele Gamberini, MTN SA chief technology and information officer, during the tour.
“But as MTN, we think connectivity today is a human right and it must be ensured to all our customers. We believe that all the people deserve a connected life.
“Our service is not only important in making people communicate but also to ensure basic services. Most of our public services rely on connectivity, so without connectivity, there is no public service. Our network has to be over 95% available all of the time.”
According to Gamberini, MTN has two main ways to achieve 95% availability.
“First, we have to build power backups in our sensitive equipment – base stations and microwave links. We provide backups through generators as well as batteries. In some sites, we use both batteries and generators.”
However, he pointed out that batteries have their own challenge when load-shedding continues for longer hours.
“The problem with batteries is that when we have a power crisis, batteries don’t work forever because when they are over-stressed, they get depleted very often. That means we have to continue to verify that they are working properly or replace them. We are investing very heavily in network availability.”
He pointed out MTN replaces and optimises power batteries on more than 3 000 sites in less than one year.
Gamberini noted the network is, unfortunately, very much affected by vandalism. “Just to give you an idea, in 2022, just in the Eastern Cape, we’ve had almost 400 unique sites that were vandalised.
“Even more, the same site can be vandalised multiple times. We have some cases where a single site was vandalised 15 times in one year. Vandalism can mean many things – it means the site is not available, and we will have to intervene in order to restore the service, or to prevent the vandalism from happening again.
“We are implementing several actions to make the lives of the thieves a little more difficult by hardening our sites. We are building bunkers and shelters for our batteries and also replacing copper cables, which are lucrative to the thieves, with aluminium cables.”
MTN issued a statement yesterday saying sometimes criminals disguise themselves as third-party contractors so as not to be confronted by local communities. They then take that opportunity to specifically steal batteries.
“The syndicate criminality has a knock-on effect on opportunistic criminality, as after a site has been hit by a syndicate, and should it not be secured soon enough, opportunistic criminality will then also occur,” explains Charles Molapisi, CEO of MTN SA.
With MTN having embarked on a major rural network rollout drive, the protection of these sites is paramount, and numerous initiatives are being deployed, says the telco.
For instance, the telco and IHS, MTN’s tower sites partner, have a three-phase resilience plan under way. IHS is looking at various hardening solutions, such as concrete blocks, to secure the batteries, concrete bunkers and high-security cabinets.
According to the mobile operator, close collaboration with the police and heightened security at sites are leading to more arrests.
MTN has also started swapping copper cables with aluminium cables on masts at many sites, while a TX Ring resilience programme to protect sites across all provinces is on track, showing good results.
[PICTURE] MTN base station 3
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