MTN fights back against battery thieves

[Bradley Prior]

MTN fights back against battery thieves

MTN said its efforts to combat battery theft at its cell tower base stations are seeing good results.

According to the mobile operator, it recovered 143 batteries worth R1.2 million in January.

 

[MirageF1]

“Recent statistics show that 703 batteries were stolen from MTN stations in January 2020 with a total of 122 incidents,” said MTN.
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“A total of eight MTN Lithium-Ion Batteries and eight Telkom Lead-Acid batteries were recovered, and sentences of between 5-10 years were meted out by the magistrate on 28 January for the offence of tampering with essential infrastructure,” said MTN.

 

[Apogee]

Is there no way that the batteries can be rendered useless if they are being tampered with?

 

[markings]

Is there no way that the batteries can be rendered useless if they are being tampered with?

Enclose them in a big cement block? Maybe the tower foundation? Not at a critical point of course.

 

[Apogee]

Enclose them in a big cement block? Maybe the tower foundation?

I think they tried something similar already, but even that wasn't enough to keep it from being stolen.

https://mybroadband.co.za/news/cell...frican-criminals-from-stealing-batteries.html

 

[Greglsh]

I was thinking, along the lines of adding a RF circuit board inside the battery, then to "enable" the battery a specific RF tag has to be placed close to the battery to enable it, once it is removed/ disconnected this disables the battery output. I know that this "tag" would then be the hot item on the theft list. What you could do is then make it a rolling code like a garage door, and each RF tag has the employee number so if "stolen" he is responsible, and this tag can be disabled from future activations

MTN, VODACOM, TELKOM. IF you use this idea, remember me