R550 million per year disaster in South Africa

While South Africa’s network operators have said that battery theft and vandalism at their base stations have declined since 2023, MTN and Vodacom have noted that the crimes still cost them a combined R550 million this year.

Several years of severe load-shedding had necessitated that South Africa’s mobile operators install increased tower backup capacity to reduce the power cuts’ impact on customer connectivity.

Alongside copper cables and other valuable materials used in telecoms infrastructure, backup power equipment became a prime target for opportunistic thieves and organised syndicates.

“Battery theft and vandalism at our base stations continue to be a huge challenge for the telco sector,” says Vodacom Group chief risk officer Johan van Graan.

“The consequences go beyond the costs of repairing and restoring infrastructure. They have a significant impact on communities that depend on connectivity as a vital lifeline.”

According to Vodacom, base station vandalism and battery theft can leave hundreds of thousands of people without a means to communicate, as many rely on cellphone networks for this.

However, it can also affect businesses and emergencies where communication can be a matter of life or death.

The operator said that KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, and Northern Gauteng accounted for 40% of all battery thefts.

MTN South Africa told MyBroadband that it also experienced high levels of theft and vandalism in KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State.

The network said it had experienced close to 500 incidents of theft and vandalism, which ultimately cost R450 million to replace stolen batteries and damaged base stations in 2024.

This is more than a tenfold increase from 2023’s costs, which cost the network R33 million.

It explained that these incidents included cable theft, battery theft, and the vandalism of battery safe houses.

These battery safe houses refer to vault-like structures built around base station batteries.

“In addition, MTN South Africa is replacing copper cables with aluminium, which has a lower scrap value, and securing batteries with epoxy while improving security structures and bunkers to delay potential breaches,” MTN South Africa said.

“So far this year, MTN has achieved 20 criminal convictions in 13 separate cases, with sentences ranging from 3 to 17 years.”

While these security measures may be helping to deter criminals, networks still have to invest hundreds of millions to restore stolen or damaged infrastructure.

Similarly, Vodacom recently noted that combatting theft and vandalism can cost around R100 million per year, with repairs to a single site’s infrastructure costing up to R100,000.

Vodacom Group chief risk officer Johan van Graan said he primarily attributed the decrease in these crimes throughout the year to security measures such as site hardening.

While Vodacom has invested tens of millions into preventing theft and vandalism at its base stations, it has also appealed to law enforcement and communities living near its towers to help it crack down on the crime.

“Our community engagement initiative, where we have partnered local communities and work with police to serve as monitoring personnel to help safeguard our sites, has yielded positive results,” Van Graan says.

“Critically, our partnership with private security companies and law enforcement agencies has been a major contributor to preventing break-ins and has led to successful arrests of criminals and prosecution.”

Telkom recently told MyBroadband that it lost 138 batteries to thieves in the first half of its current financial year — which ran from April to September 2024.

That represents a 62.5% decline from the 368 batteries stolen on its network in the same period last year.

That will likely significantly reduce the R19 million it spent on battery and copper cable replacements last year.

Telkom attributed the improvement to several factors, including deploying physical and technology-driven security measures to mitigate battery theft and infrastructure vandalism.

However, a trend that may drive demand for batteries is that criminals are now focusing on the materials inside batteries, such as cobalt and lithium.

Telkom explained that one of its physical solutions is to apply epoxy to the batteries, which makes them “virtually impossible” to reuse or dismantle.

In addition, it has increased intelligence-driven investigations, leading to more arrests, and was actively following up on cases.

Telkom is also coordinating in a broader fight against infrastructure vandalism with other government-owned entities heavily affected by copper cable theft, including Eskom, Transnet, and Prasa.