Robert Go, Jakarta – The automated message comes in a soothing alto voice: "The number you are calling is being repaired." And it is heard often, as the poor resort to ripping out telephone cables and selling them in local black markets to make a living.
Customer service officers at PT Telkom, Indonesia's state-run telephone provider, list corrosion or natural deterioration of cables, switch boxes and other equipments as other reasons for service disruption to some of the country's 7.2 million lines.
Although they say the incidents of theft of Telkom equipment have dropped during the past two years, the users have yet to feel the difference. But the officers admit that it remains a costly problem for the company, which has a monopoly on the local fixed phone service until 2010.
Mr Agus Yekti Edhy, assistant vice-president at Telkom's customer service deparment, said the problem had begun in the 1990s, adding: "The theft is significant in some areas, especially in urban centres, but not so bad in others." He could not give an indication as to how many kilometres of cables were ripped out by thieves each year, explaining that the data were available at individual regional Telkom offices but are not compiled at a national level.
He also declined to estimate Telkom's annual losses from this problem but said it took a "significant amount" of manpower and money to repair vandalised lines.
Most of Indonesia's network of telephone cables is laid underground, but short segments of lines – those near switch boxes – remain above ground and therefore are exposed to potential thieves.
Vandals use saws and cable cutters to get at their targets, usually ripping out 5-m sections from the network. They then sell their loot, often for as low as 2,000 rupiah per kg, to vendors at local markets. The traders then strip off the insulation and sell the copper wires to their customers.
Mr Achmad Syamsudin, one such vendor at Jakarta's Tanah Abang Market, said: "It is a fairly good trade item. Lots of people look for copper wires, and we can sell them cheaper than at hardware stores."
The problem for Telkom, Mr Agus said, was that in order to replace 5 m of ripped out connection line, his firm had to replace one entire segment of cable that could span between 150 to 200 m.
"The thieves only take 5 m, but we have to replace a much longer segment of line. In addition to the length problem, we also have to devote hours of labour to repair each incident," he said.
Indonesia's fixed-line troubles probably explain the popularity of cell phones. By March this year, Telkom, also the largest cellular telephone provider in the country, had registered almost four million cellular-phone users, with the numbers expected to grow.