TM stepping up checks on condition of installations
Published on: Tuesday, May 07, 2024
By: Sidney Skinner
The severed cable along the road to Kg Kawakaan is seen above.
TELEKOM Malaysia Bhd (TM) Bhd will step up efforts to check on the condition of its installations around Inanam and Donggongon but has admitted to facing an uphill task dealing with incidents of cable-theft in both areas.
This follows feedback from two TM subscribers from Inanam and one from Penampang about their inability to respectively access the Internet from a village, a private clinic and the building where a religious research society was based.
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The rural home-user had her Unifi service disrupted for close to a month, whereas the doctor experienced a similar inconvenience for longer than this.
The outage at the research society’s premises, meanwhile, lasted for three weeks.
A TM technician in the process of replacing the damaged cable servicing the home in the village.
The affected customers provided Hotline with the pertinent details, including their location address, which was forwarded to the company.
A TM spokesman said the disruption in Kg Kawakaan was caused by a technical fault.
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“The ‘drop fibre cable’, which extends from the nearest distribution point (DP), was found have snapped in two,” he said.
“This may have happened because the line got caught on the top of a passing lorry.”
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He said the outage was an isolated case, in this instance, which only involved one premises in the area.
The spokesman said a new cable was, subsequently, put in place between the DP and subscriber’s house.
“Our technician later double-checked on the condition of the TM modem in her house.
“He found that the device was working as it should and that the customer’s Unifi service had been restored.
“Our staff has been keeping the situation under observation, on and off, to ensure that the connection remains stable.”
He said there was no fixed maintenance schedule for the company’s installations in the district.
“Our assets, including the poles and overhead lines, are attended to as and when it becomes necessary to do so.
“To this end, we hope our subscribers will inform us directly of any irregularities involving these fixtures, so that action can be taken to deal with them as soon as possible.”
These TM personnel are seen having a new line installed for the affected subscribers at the Mutiara Complex.
When asked why it nearly a month for the TM to carry out the necessary restoration, the spokesman said this work could not be performed sooner as other more pressing matters had cropped up.
“We were caught up responding to a spate of cable thefts which had been occurring at various locations around Inanam and Donggongon.
He said the thieves were after the copper inside the company’s older service lines.
“This is why we have been undertaking a fibre-isation initiative around the State to phase out the copper lines with fibre-optic cables.”
The spokesman said the vandals recently targeted the TM lines leading to the Mutiara Complex in Inanam and the research society’s premises, off Jalan Kolam Minintod in Penampang.
“The bad hats cut part of the cable servicing the Complex.
“A different group of mischief-makers, on the other hand, set fire to the overhead line leading to the research society’s building.”
He said police reports had been made about both thefts but the thieves had yet to be caught.
“Our technicians, in the meantime, had new cables installed at both locations in place of the ones which had been damaged or stolen.”
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