Cable vandalism may raise internet cost in East Africa

Fibre optic cable carriers are incurring millions of shillings lately as additional cost for security and monitoring off their lines as cases of vandalism are worryingly on a rise in East Africa.

Industry insiders say cable vandalism is fast emerging as avenues of unnecessary expenses and if this continues, operators may even be forced to to pass on the additional costs to the consumers. Companies now have to incur expenses in hiring guards to man the cables with some even being forced to introduce monitoring units which includes vehicles on paths where their cables lie.

Now the companies are preparing to move petitions to their respective governments to hand down stiffer penalties to suspected vandals.

Service providers are also pointing fingers at each other, saying vandalism on the fibre cable is a form of industrial sabotage, since the actual fibre cable does not have a resale value. Fibre optic cables allow for more services to be provided to end-users and can carry more voice and data information than copper wiring but are made from material that is almost valueless in black markets.

Uganda national fibre optic backbone route