As copper becomes more expensive, thieves around Canada are cutting and stealing copper telecommunications cables used for internet and, in some cases, cell service.
Earlier this year, thieves cut a cable length on a St.Catharines, ON escarpment, resulting in a multi-day outage of Bell’s internet service in the area. Now, residents of a small community called Steelhead, located north of Mission, B.C., say repeat copper thefts are putting people’s safety at risk.
According to a report from Global News, this issue has been consistent for ten years and didn’t stop after Telus switched to fibre optic cables in 2021. The same report mentioned that the lines have been cut four times in the last seven months.
One of the times a line was cut, the thieves stole a cable feeding into a cell tower, knocking out cell service in the area as well.
However, Telus is far from the only company dealing with copper theft. I spoke with Bell’s director of networks, David Joice, back in the spring, and he said that around the time of the large cable theft on the St. Catharines escarpment, there were also five other thefts of various cables around the area.
Since January 2022, Bell has faced over 1,000 security issues related to cut cables. Most of these are in Ontario, but a fair amount are still happening in Quebec, New Brunswick, and the other provinces.
The company is working to install hidden alarms in the cables to catch these thieves in action. It also works behind the scenes to charge the thieves who are caught with a harsher penalty than theft since the cable cuts impact a lot of people and can bring down emergency services. Something that can be especially dangerous in remote communities like those living in Steelhead.
The company is also looking to move more cables to fibre optic or smaller, less desirable cables, but as the price of copper keeps rising, it feels like the telecom companies are going to be fighting this battle for a while.
Source: Global News
Image Source: Shutterstock
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