Zimbabwe's state run and only fixed phone operator, TelOne is installing alarm systems on its infrastructure, including telecom cables to deal with rising cases of infrastructure theft and vandalism.

"The installation of alarm systems on TelOne infrastructure including copper cables is in progress in order to protect our telecommunications network," the company said on Friday.

TelOne has around 300 000 land-line users on its network. It has recently said that it is keen to operationalise its mobile licence to become Zimbabwe's fourth mobile operator after Econet, Telecel Zimbabwe and state owned NetOne.

Its network has suffered infrastructure vandalism owing to growing instances of theft of cables and other infrastructure. This has prompted the government owned land-line phone company to install alarm systems on its equipment.

"This development means that any act of theft or vandalism will be automatically detected and trigger the alarms which will be responded to by our reaction teams."

TelOne said it intends to cover most of its routes in the country and added that routes already covered by the alarms had already seen "increased arrests".

It also warned that the current heavy rains that Zimbabwe is experiencing may also lead to an increase in service faults owing to "lightning strikes and trees falling onto TelOne lines" with voice and ADSL broadband being the most affected services.