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Telikom’s cable repair cost soars
By BIBIAN BARRENG
TELIKOM has incurred a maintenance cost of
K200,000 following the recent increased random vandalising of telephone
cables in Port Moresby.
The media was taken on a tour of some of the vandalised sites in the
city where Telikom linesmen were found busy at work replacing paper
insulated cables with plastic insulation. With the recent wet weather in
the city, water seeped through the paper insulated cables, causing more
havoc. The linesmen were busy pulling new lines and making connections
in the cut cables.
In three months, the telecommunication company reported 18 cases of
vandalism. Annually, vandalism cases rose to 50.
Apart from the copper cables being vandalised, the iron caste pillars
were also removed, inconveniencing some 300 customers whose phone lines
are wired through the pillar to the Boroko or Ela Beach telephone
exchange centre.
A Telikom officer said since the scrap metal industry came into
operation, Telikom began experiencing vandalism of cables and was now
working towards sealing the cables with heavy metal cement slabs only
moveable by a backhoe along with a wireless system that would be
trialled in two months time.
Telikom will service the business areas first before attending to
residential areas. The recent vandalism at Gerehu had cost Telikom about
K45,000 for labour, security and materials.
The telecommunication cables at Gerehu provide services to different
mine sites in the country while mobile phone service to most parts of
the New Guinea Islands were fully restored just after 9pm last Saturday.
In response to business houses complaining about the provision of
internet services, Telikom manager for satellite operations Michael
Bisiro said Telikom had provided a big bandwidth, yet it was the
Internet Service Provider (ISP) that was not purchasing chunk bandwidth
as it may be costly.
However, he said it would be more costly if the ISPs were to provide
their own bandwidth as there would be a need for a transponder that is
very costly for small companies.
Mr Bisiro said tariffs would drop if there was more competition in the
provision of bandwidth, adding that with a change of management, there
was also bound to be a change of objectives for the company.
 
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