Cable bandits leave over 900 Telecom customers hanging
At least 912 Telecom Namibia customers were left without telecommunication services this week, following another cable theft in the John Pandeni (Soweto) and Katutura East constituencies of Windhoek.
The service breakdown between Kallie Roodt street in the Northern Industrial Area, Rensburger street in the Lafrenz Industrial Area and Penning street in Soweto comes after a gang of cable thieves cut and removed several main cables, damaging two 800 pair cables, a 1600 pair cable and another 1200 pair cable in the process. The optic fibre cables affected are the 48 core linking Northern Industrial and Wanaheda and the 48 core linking Northern Industrial and Katutura.
Telecom Namibia in a statement said that its initial investigation revealed that the cable thieves forcibly opened a manhole on the western cable run adjacent to Monte Christo Road, by cutting the locking mechanism with a hacksaw.
“The splicing of first 48 core cable has started. A contractor has been assigned to haul in approximately 200 meter of optic fibre cable, after which splicing will start and continued until finished,” Telecom Namibia spokesperson Oiva Angula said.