Many reports linked these outages directly to the violence, while some even suggested that mobile networks were prime targets leading up to the looting.<\/p>\n
However, based on responses from mobile network operators to MyBroadband, most of these incidents were not a result of the unrest.<\/p>\n
The country\u2019s biggest mobile network operators \u2014 Vodacom, MTN, Telkom, Cell C, and Rain \u2014 said no evidence suggested rioters targeted their sites specifically.<\/p>\n
Vodacom spokesperson Byron Kennedy said there was no noticeable increase in the number of vandalised sites.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bulk of the base stations that were affected during the unrest are located in shopping malls in areas such as KwaMashu, Durban CBD, Maritzburg and Richards Bay,\u201d Kennedy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSafe to say, regarding network infrastructure, there was little damage caused by the unrest. At this stage, we estimate that the number of base stations that were impacted by fires at malls is between 5 and 10.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThese base stations primarily ensure our customers can connect while they are in the mall, so we\u2019ll make sure these sites will be operational when the affected malls reopen for business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kennedy added there was little impact on network quality as the vast majority of Vodacom’s network was up and running in these areas.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Brookside-Mall-on-fire-headline.jpg\")
Brookside Mall in Pietermaritzburg was on fire during looting sprees earlier in July.<\/p><\/div>\n
MTN\u2019s executive for corporate affairs, Jacqui O\u2019Sullivan, said that the operator\u2019s infrastructure at only seven base station sites was impacted due to malls being burnt during the looting.<\/p>\n
Notably, no sites owned by the operator itself were hit.<\/p>\n
More than 100 MTN towers experienced outages during the week of the looting, many of which were in Gauteng or KwaZulu-Natal.<\/p>\n
However, these outages appeared not to be related to the unrest itself but were part of the typical downtime due to battery theft and vandalism which occur throughout the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese towers were indirectly impacted as our technicians were unable to do regular maintenance”, O’Sullivan said.<\/p>\n
All of these have since been fixed.<\/p>\n
Telkom also said it did not experience theft and vandalism “above the usual” levels.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cAlthough we did experience issues with site access in affected areas where we detected service interruptions, it is a relief to say that no infrastructure was reported to be damaged as a direct result of the unrest,\u201d Telkom stated.<\/p>\n \u201cService interruptions were mainly caused by electricity supply and transmission-related problems that we deal with daily.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThese service interruptions were addressed remotely where possible on an ongoing basis.”<\/p>\n Where technicians needed to be dispatched, Telkom restored sites within four days, the company said.<\/p>\n Cell C did not receive any reports of vandalised or damaged network towers.<\/p>\n \u201cThe last report of a damaged site was about a year ago in a specific community in KwaZulu-Natal,\u201d the operator stated.<\/p>\n Rain \u2014 the smallest operator of the five \u2014 said there was no evidence to corroborate whether the vandalism it suffered was a targeted attack on mobile towers or if it was merely a result of the looting.<\/p>\n Its field teams have returned to work in affected areas in Gauteng, where the majority of sites have been restored, and KwaZulu-Natal, where damage was more severe.<\/p>\n \u201cThese sites are being attended to, and repairs are underway,\u201d Rain said.<\/p>\n South Africa’s mobile network operators responded to allegations that saboteurs specifically targeted towers during the July riots in parts of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":408256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[355,35,30900,33997,67920,42,43716,109,45957,41],"class_list":["post-407896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-cell-c","tag-headline","tag-looting","tag-mobile-networks","tag-mobile-towers","tag-mtn","tag-rain","tag-telkom","tag-violence","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407896"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407896"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":408254,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407896\/revisions\/408254"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"samsung](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/samsung-vRan-radio-5g-tower.jpg\")
<\/p>\nNow read: Tremendous damage caused by looting shown in one table<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"