OREANDA-NEWS. April 9, 2008. OJSC North West Telecom conducted an "emergency" press-tour around telecommunication facilities in St Petersburg as part of the promotion campaign to combat cable theft and prevent damage to the city's telecommunication lines. In the course of the tour, journalists were taken around several telecommunication line facilities in the Nevsky District, one of the most "unfavourable" city districts in terms of cable theft. OJSC NWT experts took the journalists to the actual crime scenes, such as the basements of buildings in Solidarnosti and Dalnevostochnyy Prospects where cable had been damaged on several occasions, and demonstrated how difficult it was to restore the disrupted telecommunication line and repair the damage caused by the criminals.

In the course of the tour, journalists visited the Transmission System Department of the St Petersburg Branch of OJSC North West Telecom, where they had the opportunity to inspect the equipment that detects and indicates the damage done to the cables of the so-called "joint circuits" that connect the automatic exchanges and communication centres. Such cables are damaged much less frequently than those belonging to the so-called "subscriber network", but any damage here has far greater consequences, since it can affect thousands and tens of thousands of subscribers rather than several hundred. At any time of day and night, if there is an alert that a joint circuit has been damaged, engineers take immediate action to repair it. Telecommunication lines are usually duplicated, and subscribers remain unaware of any emergencies caused by criminal activity or indeed by organisations such as construction companies.

Representatives of OJSC North West Telecom told those present at the "emergency" press-tour that since 2005 the frequency of cable theft at the lines of the St Petersburg Branch of OJSC North West Telecom had increased manifold - from 116 in 2005 to almost 600 in 2007. In 2007 alone, 50,788 homes in St Petersburg were affected by cable theft, including about 2,000 homes equipped with security alarms. The list of districts where cable theft is most frequent is headed by the Nevsky District (over 150 cases of cable theft in 2007), Petrodvortsovy District (77 cases), Krasnoselsky (74 cases), and Kalininsky (69 cases). It was noted that the frequency of cable theft dropped significantly in the first quarter of 2008: only 33 cases were reported, which was five times less than in the previous year. According to M.E. Sukhikh, Director of the Corporate Communication Department of OJSC North West Telecom, one of the reasons for the reduction was the "wave of keen interest that swept across the mass media following the round table organised by the Rosbalt Information Agency together with the major telecommunication operators in St Petersburg in November 2007, and that was renewed after every public event held to highlight the problem of cable theft committed in order to sell nonferrous scrap".

An expert of the Security Department of the St Petersburg Branch of OJSC North West Telecom reminded the press-tour participants that in the beginning of 2008 OJSC North West Telecom had concluded an agreement with the OJSC STAF Security Company, which involved establishment of a public hotline (577-11-11). In addition, STAF rapid response groups regularly patrol the unfavourable city districts and respond to the alerts received by the hotline. Since 1 March, the 577-11-11 hotline received about a hundred calls. In spite of the fact that only a tenth of the calls was directly related to the threat of cable theft, the hotline is "an effective and important tool to use against the criminals who deprive tens of thousands of people in St Petersburg of telecommunication, which is so vital in the modern world".