Subscribers in Southern California of Spectrum’s Internet service experienced outages over the weekend following what company officials said was an attempted theft of copper lines located in Van Nuys, a suburb located 20 miles from downtown Los Angeles.
The people behind the incident thought they were targeting copper lines, the officials wrote in a statement Sunday. Instead, they cut into fiber optic cables. The cuts caused service disruptions for subscribers in Van Nuys and surrounding areas. Spectrum has since restored service and is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the apprehension of the people responsible. Spectrum will also credit affected customers one day of service on their next bill.
An industry-wide problem
“Criminal acts of network vandalism have become an issue affecting the entire telecommunications industry, not just Spectrum, largely due to the increase in the price of precious metals,” the officials wrote in a statement issued Sunday. “These acts of vandalism are not only a crime, but also affect our customers, local businesses and potentially emergency services. Spectrum’s fiber lines do not include any copper.”
Outage information service Downdetector showed that thousands of subscribers in and around Van Nuys reported outages starting a little before noon on Sunday. Within about 12 hours, the complaint levels returned to normal. Spectrum officials told the Los Angeles Times that personnel had to splice thousands of fiber lines to restore service to affected subscribers.
Over the past two decades, copper theft has emerged as a major problem in industries spanning plumbing, telephone and Internet connectivity, and others relying on the material, which is a good conductor of electricity and once sold at low prices.In 2008, the FBI warned that copper theft threatened the entire US infrastructure. In earlier decades, copper was widely used, in part because of its relatively low price. As copper prices rose, thieves began stealing it. The abundance of the metal in remote and unsurveilled environments scattered all around the country made it a tempting target for thieves.
In 2015, AT&T reported the cutting of a 1,200-foot run of fiber line disrupted service, requiring 192 lines to be re-fused. AT&T didn't say whether the people responsible simply wanted to disrupt AT&T services or if they mistakenly believed there was copper in the infrastructure they damaged.
Last year, AT&T said it was scrapping its copper-based networks and replacing them with fiber ones. The company cited multiple reasons, including the ongoing theft of the metal lines.
Besides offering the $25,000 reward, Spectrum also said it’s working with police to apprehend the suspects behind the most recent incident of vandalism.
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