Michele Gamberini on the criminal assault on MTN's base stations

Loading player...
MTN South Africa hosted a media event in Soweto on Thursday to demonstrate to journalists the severe impact that criminal vandalism is having on its base stations.
In this interview, conducted at the site of an MTN base station in Mofolo South in Soweto, the company's chief technology and information officer, Michele Gamberini, tells TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod about the attacks taking place on its high sites and how it's fighting back.
MTN disclosed that it will spend at least R1.5-billion this year at it moves to secure its network against both severe load shedding and vandalism.
Gamberini said MTN will use the R1.5-billion allocated to building resilience in its network - protecting its infrastructure from vandals and deploying thousands of additional batteries to ensure its sites remain operational during extended power outages.
Gamberini said that in the past year there have been more than 400 unique attacks on its tower infrastructure in the Eastern Cape alone. Some sites have been hit as many as 15 times, he said.
In this episode of the TechCentral Show, Gamberini unpacks the impact of the vandalism and power cuts on its ability to service its clients. He also talks about how the company is working with law enforcement in an effort to address the problem, which is affecting all industry players.
31 Mar 2023 6AM English South Africa Technology · Business

Other recent episodes

How Optasia lends billions to people banks can’t see

Optasia will distribute more than US$6-billion in credit across its markets in 2026 – and it carries every cent of the default risk itself. In this episode of the TechCentral Show, CEO Salvador Anglada unpacks how the JSE’s biggest recent fintech listing actually works. Formerly known as Channel VAS, Optasia…
23 Jul 9AM 25 min

Pick n Pay’s Enrico Ferigolli on Penny, the AI that shops for you

Pick n Pay has switched on an AI shopping companion called Penny inside its asap! app, and in this episode of the TechCentral Show, retail executive for omnichannel Enrico Ferigolli takes editor Duncan McLeod through what it does and why it matters. Built on Google's Gemini models, Penny lets customers…
2 Jul 9AM 23 min

Charge’s R1.8-billion bet on an off-grid EV future

South Africa has fewer than 400 public electric vehicle charging stations – up from zero just 15 years ago – and EV adoption remains stubbornly slow. Yet Charge, formerly known as Zero Carbon Charge, is betting big that a coast-to-coast network of off-grid, renewable-powered charging stations is exactly what’s needed…
18 May 9AM 37 min

TCS | The Cape Town start-up listening for TB with AI

AI Diagnostics, a Cape Town-based med-tech company that has built an AI-powered stethoscope designed to detect tuberculosis, recently raised R85-million in a pre-series-A funding round. In this episode of the TechCentral Show (TCS), Nkosinathi Ndlovu speaks to the company’s CEO, Braden van Breda, about the funding round and its mission…
4 May 3AM 36 min

Werner Lindemann on how AI is rewriting the infosec rulebook

The pace at which artificial intelligence is reshaping the threat landscape is outstripping the ability of most organisations to defend themselves, with shadow AI, synthetic identity attacks and a looming quantum computing disruption all converging at once. That’s the view of DataGroupIT CEO Werner Lindemann, who joined Duncan McLeod on…
15 Apr 9AM 38 min