Many households across Los Angeles were left without internet on Father's Day, after some would-be thieves attempted to strip copper from fiber optic cables. Internet provider Spectrum told The LA Times that cut lines in Van Nuys affected swaths of homes in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, with the total number of affected residents unknown.
Internet customers, primarily concentrated northwest of Los Angeles proper near Burbank, were left waiting for service to return from midnight on Sunday morning until well into Monday morning, when repairs were completed. Spectrum reports that work crews needed to make thousands of splices to the fiber connections to restore service, a time-intensive process. Fusion splicing entire sheaths of fiber wire, done wire-by-wire, required calling out extra crews to the vandalism location.
In a bitter twist, the wire-slicers also didn't receive anything for their labor, as Spectrum's fiber-optic lines do not contain copper. After reportedly climbing trees and slicing into multiple lengths of wire looking for copper, the thieves were left fruitless. Those who committed the "criminal act of vandalism" have yet to be located by authorities.
The lack of copper does not mean the wires were not highly expensive, however. A Spectrum spokesperson shared that not just Spectrum, but the entire communications industry is experiencing increased repair expenses, "largely due to the increase in the price of precious metals. These acts of vandalism are not only a crime, but also affect our customers, local businesses, and potentially emergency services.”
The LA incident follows a nationwide uptick in would-be copper thieves chopping into fiber-optic and communications cables. While most phone lines still contain copper, fiber-optics are typically free of it, but take longer to repair, leaving some places with slower response times without internet for weeks post-fiber-vandalism.
Spectrum has pledged to credit customers in LA for the length of time they were without service. As precious metals increase in price, global tech markets are all beginning to feel the heat, with China recently increasing its rare earth exports to capitalize on high demand. And while we wait for truly wireless internet connections to homes, outages due to uneducated copper hunters may continue to increase.
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