- To
-
- From
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Kobus van Tonder
- Subject
- Offer of urgent telecoms support for SAPS station reachability
- Date
- June 19, 2026, 9:14 a.m.
Dear Mr Cameron,
I hope you are well. I am writing to you not as a political stakeholder, but as a South African telecoms provider who is genuinely concerned about the public safety risk created when communities cannot reach their local police stations by telephone.
The recent reports regarding police station telephone accessibility are deeply worrying. If a member of the public cannot get through to a station during a crisis, the first link in the emergency response chain has already failed. That is not only a communications problem; it becomes a policing, investigation and community safety problem.
Weltel Telecoms would like to offer practical assistance in exploring a rapid stabilisation approach for SAPS station communications. This is not intended as a sales pitch, and we are not asking for any procurement shortcuts. Our intention is to offer technical input and a workable rescue framework that could help SAPS restore reliable public reachability where current telephone services are failing.
At a practical level, we believe the following can be assessed and piloted quickly:
1. A reachability audit of affected station numbers, including failed calls, unanswered calls, routing failures and incorrect published numbers.
2. Temporary or permanent hosted voice failover for stations where existing lines are down or unreliable.
3. Call queues, overflow routing and escalation paths so that public calls do not simply ring unanswered.
4. Central reporting to show which stations are reachable, how many calls are missed, and where failures are recurring.
5. Redundant SIP/VoIP routing options that can operate alongside existing infrastructure rather than requiring a disruptive replacement.
6. Softphone or mobile-based fallback for authorised station personnel where fixed desk phones or lines are unavailable.
7. A structured pilot at selected high-priority stations to prove whether the model can improve answer rates and public accessibility before any larger rollout is considered.
We understand that SAPS infrastructure, procurement and security requirements must be respected. For that reason, our offer is simply to make ourselves available for a technical discussion, at no obligation, with you or the relevant SAPS/Parliamentary technical stakeholders. If the idea has merit, we would gladly assist in shaping a compliant pilot proposal that focuses on measurable service restoration rather than a commercial presentation.
As South Africans, we cannot afford for communities to be unable to reach the police when they need help. If our experience in voice, hosted PBX, SIP trunking, failover routing and call reporting can contribute to a solution, we would like to help.
Kind regards,
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