Managing Executive of Vodacom in the central region, which comprises of the Free State and Northern Cape, Mamello Selamolela, says 40% of their base stations or sites in the region which has power alternatives like batteries and generators installed, were the targets of attempted and successful vandalism incidents. Selamolela says while this is a problem that affects all mobile network providers in the country, it’s a problem costing Vodacom in the region of R15 million a year on average repairing sites that have been vandalised.

She says this is money the company cannot afford, but that ends up being spent due to criminal activity. Selamolela has noticed that “the worse the load-shedding problem becomes, the worse the vandalism also becomes”, a vicious circle. One of Vodacom’s sites in the region has been frequently targeted by vandals, forcing the company to cough out R2,5 million “just on alternative power on that site alone”. The Managing Executive notes that this is unsustainable in the long run. 

The mobile network provider has been working alongside law enforcement officials, police and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to increase penalties for the theft of network infrastructure, a feat which they say has been achieved. Selamolela says the theft of infrastructure is an industry-wide problem and needs to be dealt with as such.

The Vodacom Group released its third-quarter financial results, on the same day, revealing revenue is up by 6,6% year-on-year. In South Africa alone, Vodacom is said to have added 484 000 customers, thanks in part to their summer campaign.

In December 2019, the Competition Commission found in their report, that data prices in the country are exorbitant and recommended that service providers reduce the price of data by up to 50 percent within two months or face prosecution. This deadline has since been extended by an extra month. 

Selamolela says this is to enable the providers to iron out some of the contentious issues in the Competition Commission's report. “The issue is complex,” reveals the Managing Executive. She says first-off, CompCom’s report on data pricing is not aligned with the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa’s (Icasa’s) report on the same matter. A second issue is a delay in spectrum allocation by the government. Spectrum refers to the radio frequencies used for communication over airwaves by radio, television and the mobile telephone industry. The allocation of new spectrum in South Africa reportedly hasn’t happened in years, resulting in this present predicament mobile operators find themselves in.

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