By Jonathan Mbiriyamveka
Telecomms giant — TelOne — says its viability is under threat due to network theft and vandalism resulting in the company losing US$1.5million in revenue.
According to the TelOne’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) report presented Thursday, the losses stemmed from 333 network vandalism incidents being recorded during the year translating to a 27% increase compared to prior year.
“The business is under threat due to network theft and vandalism especially on the copper network, with at least US$1,5million having been recorded in lost revenue and network elements for the period ended 31 December 2021.
“The biggest loss to the Company from acts of vandalism has been the business lost due to voice and internet service disruptions also prejudicing the Company’s valued clients and negatively impacting the Company’s reputation,” the report said.
A total of 39 965 customers were affected by vandalism-induced downtime, during the period under review, amounting to a 74% increase from 22 966 clients that were affected in 2020.
“For the current period, the network vandalism cases have continued to rise with a 21% increase having been recorded for the first half of the year compared to the same period last year.
“This has made the need to replace the copper network with optic fibre and wireless solutions more urgent as these solutions are not only less susceptible to vandalism but also significantly improve the quality of experience.
“To this end funding options continue to be pursued for the phased replacement of copper wires, with Chitungwiza having been the first under the programme, to migrate to the LTE technology,” the report said.
This has had impact on profitability as TelOne’s EBITDA plummeted to 8% at the end of May 2022, from a high of 35% when the current tariff was effected in September 2021.
This index has seen a rapid erosion over the past two months raising viability concerns going forward, in the absence of a tariff review.
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