Telkom being sabotaged.

I

iDOL

Expert Member
Joined
Nov 20, 2006
Messages
2,480
Reaction score
93
Location
Far & Away
I have just had my 3rd visit from a Telkom techinician visit .

In the last 4 days I have had to log 3 different calls.

Our lines from the poles have been stolen and cut, mind you only about pieces of about a meter or so. Hardly even worth R5 or less.

This only to stop us being able to use the Telkom sevices and forcing us to log calls for the services to be re-instated.

After chatting to the the techic, he informed me that there is some rogue Telkom contractors out there sabotaging the services, by cutting pieces of cable just to get more jobs for contractors to lay new cables.

Now like any other Telkom-hater, I would not mind Telkom being out of cash at having to replace infrastructure, but when it affects me , I get pissed off.

You can literally see that it's purely just vandalism, because as soon as Telkom arranges temporary services they make certain to sabotage these as well.

The worst part is these buggers do it in the dead of the night at like 2-3 in the morning.

The techie said he has to head out to Soweto as well, because there's a host of these calls that he needs to attend to , where it's purely just vandalism aimed at sabotaging the services to get them new contracts.
 
Luckily I haven't had that kind of trouble with Telkom. Great link for the "Cut Phone Line Detector". It could be a good addition to your security system in any case.
 
well I just need someone with a little bit of know how to help me construct one fo these babies
 
Dude, theres only one thing to do. Buy machine gun (with silencer). Buy one pair camoflouge pants. Buy one camouflouge shirt. Buy six pack red bull. Wait and shoot.:rolleyes:
 
Well, I am down again. I was online till 23.00 lastnight when I went off to bed.

The fckers hit again. In the early hours of the morning. Cables mangled just for the sake of cutting us off. Not even making it look credible, like they are actually trying to steal the cables.

Two weeks ago, Telkom Techies were busy replacing the temporary cables with permanent cabling in the area. They even used a steelrod to insulate the wires running down from the pole into the ground, hoping it will dissuade them from cutting it there.
 
Forgot to add the fun we had when the Telkom techies were busy repairing the cables.

Seems like on the Saturday afternoon when it was time for them to head off home, they just opted to connect any line to any point on the box where they could find an opening.

The result was I had one of my neighbours 384 lines for the Saturday Evening, oh the pain, I could kill (I wasn't aware of the mistake initially). Later that evening we received a call and indicated to the person that they dialled a wrong number. A few minutes later they called back, sounding very confused. The lady indicated that she dialled very carefully and was certain that the number was correct.

So I decided to dial my number only to find that it was ringing and my nextdoor neighbour picked up the telephone. I logged a call. We tried the other number on the property and ended up 3 houses away.

To their credit, seems our trusty techies were aware of their little mix-up, because they were there at 7.00 on Sunday morning, not even responding to the logged call(but repairing their shoddy job) , because that techie only got to us at 2.30 on Sunday afternoon. They managed to resolve the issue without much of a fuss.

I was considering downgrading my 1mb up to 4mb line to one of the lower speeds, but after my experience now, I can say I will never be able to live with anything less then my current line speed. I might as well then just cancel the service then.

Oh learned one helpful thing from the techie however(it may be common knowledge, but ot me it was ne and helpful information) to double check the number where you are dialing from you dial - 101999 (011*2**5**)- it will repeat the number linked to that line. Now I can check everytime after a techie has been busy in the area that I don't end up with my neighbours number again.
 
iDOL said:
After chatting to the the techic, he informed me that there is some rogue Telkom contractors out there sabotaging the services, by cutting pieces of cable just to get more jobs for contractors to lay new cables.
Click to expand...
I've been saying that for years now. In the old days, Telkom used to replace the cables themselves. Now they use contractors. With things slowly but surely moving over to Fibre, especially the long interconnection lines, There is less copper theft and the contractors get less work. So they just cut the cables out of spite.

At my offices this was done every week for 3 months, until Telkom turned around and told us, that they would not be replacing the cables anymore since it was costing them to much money.

Sorry for us. We finally had to dig trenches, and supplied our own cables for a 300 m section to the exchange, which telkom then connected up for us, But they wont ever replace the cable again. If it gets stolen, its our responsibility.
 
Kalvaer said:
At my offices this was done every week for 3 months, until Telkom turned around and told us, that they would not be replacing the cables anymore since it was costing them to much money.

Sorry for us. We finally had to dig trenches, and supplied our own cables for a 300 m section to the exchange, which telkom then connected up for us, But they wont ever replace the cable again. If it gets stolen, its our responsibility.
Click to expand...


This is what I am afraid of , it's going to happen pretty soon. We're not that far form the exchange, I would say we're 200m or less. I am also looking at making the suggestion now to have trenches dug for them to put the cable underground.

But this is definitely going to happen. I sent out a quote to get me that alarm constructed, so I will have it by next week. Then I will just make sure that I am armed and reayd whenever they happen to mess with my line.

There is less than 60 meters that I need to monitor, so I will know where to go to immediately when the alarm goes off.
 
We also have an alarm on ours and its pretty easy to make up. Basically just a battery, a relay, on/off switch and a siren. When the voltage on the cable drops, you know they have cut the line and the relay switchs over, which turns on the alarm.

I can try get a drawing made up if you want?
 
Well, I am not gonna be happy once Telkom tells me, umm sorry sir, but we won't be replacing those hacked pieces of copper again.

But yeah I bet they will be sorry when they see me come flying around the corner, whilst they are still stuck up the pole busy cutting my cable.

I am certain they will really be crapping in their undies then.

I don't know how to deal with this, if they are prepared to go the route of sabotage to get more work and business , how far would they go to get back at someone that busted them.

Just a nasty circle I tell you .
 
I wonder what these criminals will do when they have forced everyone to go wireless because of this?

Sabotage the base stations?
 
gregmcc said:
things are really getting back when you need to arm yourself to protect your phone line from getting stolen!
Click to expand...

:mad:

If this is true, why does Helkom not ahave its own security force to monitor this??

Surely its cheaper??

Plus, it would be a tax write off??:sick:
 
Kokop said:
:mad:

If this is true, why does Helkom not ahave its own security force to monitor this??

Surely its cheaper??

Plus, it would be a tax write off??:sick:
Click to expand...
They actually used to. At least in my area. Wasn't a single cable theft in 4 months.

All the guys were "released". Two days later the cables were stolen. Who do you think did it?
 
Kalvaer said:
They actually used to. At least in my area. Wasn't a single cable theft in 4 months.

All the guys were "released". Two days later the cables were stolen. Who do you think did it?
Click to expand...

Wied???

I think we is beinging ripped:sick:
 
Well Telkom "fixed" the line, my line couldn't even sync even for a 5 seconds on the trot, before it dropped. Actual phone line sounded like I was trying to listen to some badly tuned radio station it was that bad, calls failed to complete.

Call logged again.
 
smokey said:
Dude, theres only one thing to do. Buy machine gun (with silencer). Buy one pair camoflouge pants. Buy one camouflouge shirt. Buy six pack red bull. Wait and shoot.:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

A machine gun would shred a silencer to pieces in a few seconds. You'd want a simple automatic pistol if you want the silencer to last and you'd need to use it within 10 meters of the target if you don't want the shot itself to make a noise.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X