New Delhi: With incidents of theft of wireless equipment at an all-time high, telcos have approached the Centre seeking urgent intervention, including police protection for telecom infrastructure, to curb such incidents.
“With the rising incidents of theft, customers are the ones suffering the most. While these incidents almost always lead to decline in the quality of services to the customers being served by the site, there may also be instances where services cease completely,” the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) wrote in a letter dated 14 March, 2024, to telecom secretary Neeraj Mittal. ThePrint has a copy of the letter.
All three private telecom operators — Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea — are members of COAI.
Pointing out that theft of active equipment will be covered within the offence of causing damage to telecom infrastructure under The Telecommunications
Act, 2023 — it’s a cognizable and non-bailable offence under the act — the industry body has asked the telecom department to write to all state chief secretaries to prioritize such complaints and ensure strict action on the same.
It has also sought that the DoT coordinate with states for police protection for telecom infrastructure, especially in theft-prone areas.
COAI wrote that due to the large scale at which these incidents are occurring now, telecom service providers (TSPs) are incurring huge losses as well as additional expenditure in replenishing the equipment. The telecom operators’ body has also alleged that telecom equipment that is stolen is possibly being sold on e-commerce websites, including eBay and Alibaba.
“We have come across multiple foreign websites selling active equipment online and it is suspected that the equipment stolen from the networks of our member TSPs may be making their way to these websites… It is, thus, critical that these websites are blocked immediately,” COAI has urged.
While telecom operators, it said, used to encounter a few infrequent incidents of such thefts, these incidents have increased multifold from October 2023 onwards, it said.
It said the main items being stolen are remote radio units (RRU) and baseband units (BBU). Such items cost anywhere between $100 and $5,000 on the websites where COAI suspects the stolen equipment is being put up for sale, it added. Links to some of the websites have also been shared with the DoT.
It also said that such incidents are disproportionately higher in few specific geographies of Delhi-NCR, Rajasthan, Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Punjab and Haryana, with just 31 districts contributing to 50 percent of the theft incidents reported across India. Additionally, there are a huge number of sites that have seen repeated instances of equipment theft, it said.
The letter added: “Our members are taking several measures to prevent such incidents at their end. However, no measure is foolproof, and each comes with its own set of challenges; plus, multiple incidents of theft have occurred even after the implementation of such measures. Due to technical as well as legal challenges, our members are neither able to recover the stolen equipment in most cases, nor are they able to fully recover the losses incurred due to such incidents.”
ThePrint reached eBay (through a message on X) and Alibaba (via its website) for comment. This report will be updated if and when responses are received.
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