KwaZulu-Natal Premier Sihle Zikalala has called on the police to conduct a thorough investigation following the destruction of newly installed 5G network towers in three Durban townships.
Four MTN and Vodacom cellphone network towers were torched between 5 January and 6 January in KwaZulu-Natal.
There was also an unsuccessful arson attack on another network tower in KZN, said MTN spokesperson Jacqui O’Sullivan about the destruction. At the time of publication, the two operators were still looking at who owned which towers, according to O’Sullivan.
Vodacom has evidence to suggest that the torching of network infrastructure, including 5G sites, in KZN is fuelled by the latest disinformation campaign on social media platforms, linking 5G and Covid-19, said spokesperson Byron Kennedy of Vodacom.
“The modus operandi in the current wave of attacks is to burn down cell phone network infrastructure. By contrast, in typical base station vandalism cases, thieves break into cell phone network base stations in order to steal batteries and copper,” Kennedy said.
A file image of cellphone towers.
Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams has condemned the burning and destruction of cellphone network tower infrastructure and urged the South African Police to arrest those responsible for this anarchy.
The burning of the cellphone towers follows a resurgence in conspiracy theories which link the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic to 5G.
So far three telecommunications network infrastructure towers belonging to Vodacom and MTN were burnt and destroyed between Tuesday and Wednesday this week in KwaZulu-Natal.
Minister Ndabeni-Abrahams described the misinformation campaign as a threat to investments made telecoms network infrastructure.
“It is regrettable that the much-needed network infrastructure is being destroyed. The country currently needs resilient and high-speed connectivity for every citizen to enable them to participate meaningfully in the digital economy. Furthermore
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The author, Martin van Staden, says
President Cyril Ramaphosarecently directed communications minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams to cut the price of data by 50% by 2024. This not only shows that government thinks it is immune to the laws of economics, but also that it operates under the assumption that it can solve a problem it helped create. Only an economy freed from the pseudo-economics of misguided public policy will deliver the lower data prices everyone wants.
It is generally assumed that that the perceived high price of data in South Africa is due to the arbitrary greed of data providers. While there is always (rightly) a measure of self-interest at play, this assumption fails to capture a host of factors that contribute to the cost of data in South Africa.