Its Full Of Stars .... said the crim as he cut the fiber cable
Enraged by lengthy Sky broadband outage? Blame BT Openreach cable thieves
Frustrated BSkyB broadband customers living in parts of London remain without access to the internet or phone lines, after the media giant's service went titsup on Tuesday. The Register has learned that BT's Openreach network infrastructure, which is accessed by BSkyB and other ISPs in Blighty, was targeted by copper thieves …
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Thursday 12th December 2013 14:55 GMT Bluenose
A simple suggestion
Why not rip out all that expensive and valuable copper cable and replace it all with fibre. That will stop the thieves, well except for the stupid ones who go a nick the metal in the cables alongside railway lines, but then we can always hope that in their greed they touch the one carrying a few thousand volts.
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Thursday 12th December 2013 15:36 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: A simple suggestion
Ragarath,
In comparison no. Damage costs bugger all. The manpower and road disruption required to replace all copper with fibre over the whole country would be horrific. Why do you think the water companies haven't replaced all those leaky mains yet? It's not just the man-hours, it's all the disruption to roads as well.
There are parts of London where so much has been built, bombed, demolished, rebuilt or just plain moved - that before you can think about replacing infrastructure, you have to find the bloody stuff. I did a job a few years ago, where they couldn't find a 2m diameter sewer. They knew it was around somewhere, but were unable to make a new connection to it, because it was hiding...
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Thursday 12th December 2013 17:56 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: A simple suggestion
Just nitpicking, as I'm sure you're right about the cost of replacing all the copper, but...
To replace one line, you don't need to find it (although following it might work for that!) you just need to connect something else between the two ends. The something else might even follow a different route.
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Monday 16th December 2013 03:36 GMT willi0000000
Re: A simple suggestion
i ran into a similar problem in Boston. the street that needed to be excavated should have come with a warning "excavate here only with a teaspoon and whisk broom." when the contractor called DigSafe (the folks who kindly have the street marked with the locations of underground utilities) they essentially covered the whole street with orange spray paint. the excavation, which eventually zig-zagged all over the place, took months and it was only about 100 yards if measured in a straight line.
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Thursday 12th December 2013 17:15 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: A simple suggestion
I'm told by someone quite high up in BT management (posting anonymously, because who really wants to admit knowing them!) that if the cable is more than a mile long, they actually make more money from the selling of the copper than it costs to replace the copper with fibre.
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Thursday 12th December 2013 18:47 GMT BristolBachelor
Re: A simple suggestion
"...if the cable is more than a mile long, they actually make more money from the selling of the copper than it costs to replace the copper with fibre."
Is that so? And they tell me that to dig up the mile long cable from the exchange to my house, and put in a fibre router at each end will cost HOW MUCH?? Tell you what. For the 2nd-hand price of the copper wire, I'd gladly pay for fibre to my house.
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Thursday 12th December 2013 15:39 GMT JimmyPage
@Bluenose
sorry to downvote you, but criminals already start off being less bright than the average bear. There are many documented cases of fibre cables being stolen because the thickie crims think they're copper.
The best way to clamp down on metal theft is to ensure scrap merchants are required to take proper ID from anyone selling scrap metal - even someone bringing in an old saucepan.
Also, given they aren't likely to smelt the copper down (although I have heard they burn the insulation off) I wonder if it's possible to mechanically mark the cables (maybe an imperceptible notch every so often) to aid detection.
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Thursday 12th December 2013 17:35 GMT Psyx
Re: @Bluenose
"but criminals already start off being less bright than the average bear. "
No they don't.
Only the ones who get caught do.
Which are the ones you hear about, which causes perception bias.
There are just as many smart criminals as stupid ones. They're the ones earning more in a night than we do in a week and *never being successfully prosecuted*.
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Thursday 12th December 2013 19:13 GMT Da Weezil
Re: @Bluenose
The requirement already exists for sellers of scrap metal to produce ID - along with the law restricting the methods of payment for scrap sold. The Scrap Metal Dealers Act 2013 prohibits the buying scrap metal for cash etc - specifically
A scrap metal dealer must not pay for scrap metal except—
(a)by a cheque which under section 81A of the Bills of Exchange Act 1882 is not transferable, or
(b)by an electronic transfer of funds (authorised by credit or debit card or otherwise).
Incidentally this stupidly even applies to scrap cars now - which lets face it have an "identity" and shouldn't be included in these regulations. Typical of badly thought out regulations. The bad boys really wont find a way around this... will they?
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Friday 13th December 2013 13:21 GMT TomS_
Re: @Bluenose
They should just not accept random blobs of molten or even compacted copper in that particular respect, because where it comes from is less likely to be traceable.
Want to bring in copper for recycling? Please bring it in original form. At least then any original tracing features that could be applied in a number of ways would be in tact.
But, one day one of them will cut through a fibre cable that is just beyond an amplifier, look at it wondering where all of the copper is, and burn a few holes in his vision in the process. That will serve him right.
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Monday 16th December 2013 23:40 GMT Alan Brown
Re: @Bluenose
"The best way to clamp down on metal theft is to ensure scrap merchants are required to take proper ID from anyone selling scrap metal - even someone bringing in an old saucepan."
Even with all the rules about identity now in place, scrappies are allowed to pay out in cash to anyone "of no fixed abode". It doesn't take a genius to work out what happens next.
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Thursday 12th December 2013 17:26 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: A simple suggestion
The industrial estate we are on gets hit regularly. BT put in fibre and that made........
........ sod all difference, the pikeys still life the locked down lids, and haul the cable out. They use a transit and a chain.
We dropped a 20 foot iso container on one manhole which seems to have solved the problem, but we think the rozzers might frown on us doing that all down the street.
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Friday 13th December 2013 12:00 GMT rhydian
Re: A simple suggestion
The problem is that the GPO/Post Office Telephones/BT/Openreach have been putting copper in the ground for over 100 years. They can't simply decide one day "right, we'll move everyone over to FTTP" for the following reasons:
1: You'd have to do a national survey to work out where the hell all your current cables are going, who's hooked up to what and what future building works etc. are planned. That would take years.
2: You'd have to re-equip and retrain all your existing workforce so they can deal with fibre splicing and joining. This isn't cheap.
3: Apparently your not allowed to run new telecoms plant overhead on poles these days. Therefore in areas that are overhead fed (mainly rural areas) you'd have to trench out and duct in fibre to every single outlying village and farm and get permission from every landowner you cross.
4: Where there are ducts, they're not usually pristine new ducts, some have been there for over 70 years and are collapsed or blocked.
5: While selling off the copper would probably pay for it, you have to factor in the upfront cost of taking the copper out and putting the fibre in, not to mention the effect dumping that much copper on the market would have on the commodity price.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love fibre to the premises (aside from the need for a battery backup), but it can't be an overnight decision because the level work required is astronomical.
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Friday 13th December 2013 14:59 GMT Super Fast Jellyfish
BT copper replacement
Actually there's a rolling plan to replace all the copper underground for two reasons : fibre has more bandwidth and will hopefully at some point stop the cable being stolen and they've made several million selling the scrap cable over the last few years.
Talking to some openreach engineers, they said the best stuff was from the early days of the GPO as it was really thick but also wrapped in lead (to protect it)!
Oh and to someone else who said about the cost of training - they know how to strip and connect all types of cables, not much use being too specialised.
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Friday 13th December 2013 15:29 GMT rhydian
Re: BT copper replacement
I agree that a rolling upgrade plan to fibre makes sense, but most commentards believe the only reason BT/OR don't tear out all copper nationally in six months is because BT hate them all, not because it's an effing big job.
Regarding training, you do raise a good point but I doubt that every Openreach engineer is trained in and carries kit for fibre install and joining. There's a big difference in kit level between copper joining and fibre joining as well.
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Monday 16th December 2013 23:38 GMT Alan Brown
Re: A simple suggestion
"Why not rip out all that expensive and valuable copper cable and replace it all with fibre."
That's in the process of being done. The problem is the average metal thief is illiterate and only knows a "cable is a cable" - they'll rip out everything in the ground and simply dump what's not got copper in it.
BT's alarm systems are mroe reactive and there's a policy of having police onsute at any detected cable break asap but that still leaves a window of opportunity for the gangs to operate in (It takes at least 20 minutes in most cases and the thieves can be gon ein less than 10)
So far ALL the important busts have been a result of chance - there's been a patrol car close to the break, or (more often) the police have stumbled across the theft in progress quite by chance and before an alarm had been raised.
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Thursday 12th December 2013 15:06 GMT Richard Jones 1
That Takes Brain Cells
Bother to read?
Reading takes usable brain cells and possibly education. Anyway was the damage purely malicious or a real attempt at a get rich quick scrap metal scheme to try to beat the scrap metal handling rules?
Rather than recovering copper cable just use it to augment the HV distribution system at night. anything above 33KV should fry, sorry do nicely.
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Thursday 12th December 2013 15:15 GMT Alex Horrocks
They won't read it...
We've had fibre put in at work the other year, everything they put in the ground was covered with writing and symbols advertising it as being fibre every metre or so (although doesn't help that the external tubing they lay to blow the fibre down looks like a bit of beefy SWA mains cable).
Wouldn't be surprised if even if they could read they nicked it "just incase" BT were lying in some sort of attempt to put them off...
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Thursday 12th December 2013 15:50 GMT Anonymous Coward
NEED MUCH More Severe Penalties!!!
Perhaps we need to consider much more severe penalties for cable theft based on the number of cables and the resulting users who've lost power or signal to multiply the number of years of incarceration the thieving scum would stay in prison with no chance of parole or release for good behaviour.
This would include those who BUY SCRAP from theives.
IMHO, we should just shoot the little bastards so they don't have a chance to breed more scum. They have no business breathing
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Thursday 12th December 2013 17:17 GMT Anonymous Coward
@ Peaceloving Pascal
Are you fucking kidding me? "Intolerance"?? I don't tolerate criminals or those who enable them. Cable Thieves and Scrappers that buy their wares are Criminals plain and simple. Punishment is not intended to be "fun".
Perhaps I should add to my list , "Well meaning Wankers that would rather let criminals destroy property and steal than take them out and punish them appropriately".
"He's a good boy Guvner, don't put him in Prison" "He only stole the signal cable from the train tracks to pay for his dope habit, he's sorry hundreds died from the train collision".
Or some other LAME excuse.
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Thursday 12th December 2013 17:07 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: NEED MUCH More Severe Penalties!!!
Hardly the Daily Fail, D.A.M. not even the right country boy'o.
Seems you favor mollycoddling the little batsards then.
Both my company and myself have been victims of power cable thieves and you would feel the same as I do if that had been your business down for a week without power.
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Thursday 12th December 2013 17:39 GMT Psyx
Re: NEED MUCH More Severe Penalties!!!
"Seems you favor mollycoddling the little batsards then."
What: Because someone doesn't agree that execution is acceptable penalty for theft and depriving people of HD pr0n for 48 hours they are molycoddling? Bit black and white that one for you, eh?
I doubt if my business was down for a week that I'd be demanding a head on a stick, but I guess you're psychotic/sociopathic/psychopathic. Because demanding death because you lost some money isn't normal human behaviour
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Friday 13th December 2013 20:32 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: NEED MUCH More Severe Penalties!!!
Okay Psyx, I'll call your lily livered left leaning bluff.
Though I'd like to see them shot since that's about the only thing the little bastards fear anymore; I'll settle for 30 years hard time.
Since you are so socially aware YOU can pay for their upkeep and maintenance yourself.
We lost ALL productivity for 50 people for a whole week and the accompanying real business loss was around $150k let alone the cabling and labor to repair the wiring and build guards over everything. No Pr0n involved, just the inability to use our VOIP phone system, email, lights, airconditioning, security & fire alarm systems etc etc etc so we could conduct business. You'd be surprised at the amount of damage shorting out a 480 VAC transformer will cause to a building and the systems inside it.
Tough to run a business without those amenities.
What if this had been a doctors office or hospital instead of just a contractor?
It is not psychotic to want to kill people who invade your property and steal and destroy what you worked very hard to create.
We call it "Justifiable Homicide" here.
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Sunday 15th December 2013 11:10 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: NEED MUCH More Severe Penalties!!!
"What if this had been a doctors office or hospital instead of just a contractor?"
In the case of a loss of grid power, hopefully they'd have had a tried tested and proven contingency plan (especially the hospital; I've been in a major hospital when the standby didn't work when the grid went down, and it was really not a good place to be).
The doctors office could probably have improvised something within 48h or so (maybe less) with an electrician and a few kVA of supersilenced genny which seem to be widely available (where I am) at short notice these days. Even the power companies do that kind of thing. Consequential damage? See below.
"You'd be surprised at the amount of damage shorting out a 480 VAC transformer will cause to a building and the systems inside it."
You might. Others might not.
There are a surprising number of allegedly bright people who think that because something is low probability it doesn't need thinking about, even if it's likely to be a "bet your business" event when it does happen.
"It is not psychotic to want to kill people who invade your property and steal and destroy what you worked very hard to create."
Maybe not, but suppose the same result had been caused by e.g. a digger driver by accident (or bad planning) rather than by malice? You want the driver killed too, or just locked up? Or maybe you just sue his company out of business?
The effect on your business of the accidental version might have been just the same as the deliberate version, maybe even including the consequential damage. The way your dice rolled on the day, you got the deliberate one.
[Btw: I was one of a number of people in a respectable neighbourhood who had their homes burgled multiple times in less than a decade by a local heroin dealer and his mates. No one was ever even arrested . I am not a "lily livered lefty".]
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Monday 16th December 2013 17:53 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: NEED MUCH More Severe Penalties!!!
There is a BIG difference between Deliberate (Stealing) and Accidental (Self explanatory) cable breakage.
It is eminently justifiable to remove the malicious criminal from the gene pool.
It is not justifiable to remove the accidental criminal as they can usually be educated instead of incinerated.
Just this morning on my way into work, I noticed that some thieving bastard had stolen a 1/2 mile section of 3" Diameter main telephone trunk cable on Garlow Road in the Town of Lewiston, NY. I would call that damage in the half to one million dollar range.
This probably wiped out 1/3 of the town's POTs phone capacity not to mention DSL. I pity the poor people who need POTs service as Verizon WILL NOT FIX EXISTING RESIDENTIAL COPPER LINES any longer in NY State as it is "No longer profitable"!!!!!
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Thursday 12th December 2013 18:18 GMT Boris the Cockroach
Re: NEED MUCH More Severe Penalties!!!
No I'm not... yet
Actually those bastard cable theives deserve to be hung from the nearest rail bridge and have trains drive into their bodies.
Why?
Because although I dont really care one way or the other, but since the scrap we make now has to be routed through the company accounts, all the money recieved by the company from the scrappies and passed onto us employees has to be taxed!!! costing everyone who works there about £100 per year in lost money.
Boris
Ps... a nice thick copper bar at every electricity substation wired up to 11Kv should sort out scrap theives very quickly.....
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Monday 16th December 2013 23:48 GMT Alan Brown
Re: NEED MUCH More Severe Penalties!!!
All you need is "intereference with transport systems" and "interference with safety systems"
Why safety systems? 999 of course
Put them in a special hell along with the fucktards who think it's fun to lase aircraft (or passing traffic. A green laser at close range fucking HURTS!)
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Thursday 12th December 2013 16:06 GMT Anonymous Coward
Happened last week as well, on Thursday evening around 9pm thieves stole loads of copper cabling from somewhere in the Embankment (I think) and 25 London Universities connected to JaNET went dark. Had to route our internet via Wales to get a dribble of connection and Google would only accept sheep related queries from us in UOL. (so no change there then)
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Thursday 12th December 2013 19:59 GMT Captain Queeg
A question.
I've not read anywhere of none Sky connections being impacted, which leads me to ask a question of the Network types on here. As I understand it:
1. Open Reach manage communal infrastructure
2. Sky Manage their core back end and provide a point of presence to OpenReach for the final mile.
Unless I've got this wrong (and do tell me if I have), either:
1. Sky have SPOFs aplenty but other providers have more resilience?
2. It's Sky infrastructure - in which case why are OR involved?
3. Other ISPs are managing their customers expectations better?
Anyone care to help me out?
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Thursday 12th December 2013 22:40 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: FO Cables in sewers. I heard of this. (John Smith 19)
" FO Cables in sewers. I heard of this.
Wasn't that how most cable TV companies did it in the 80s and 90s, before they all got taken over by Vermin?"
Don't think so. In the early days, the cablecos dug holes in the ground, like every other utility.
Later, NTL/Telewest etc used "microtrenching" ie a narrow slit in the street and dangle the cable across the front garden (if applicable).
wrt sewers: See H2O Networks and FibreCity/CityFibre marketing materials, but not their "mass market" reality. Their main claim to fame was that they used the sewers for fibre to avoid the cost and aggro of digging, which maybe they did for point to point limited-connectivity links. But when it came to the mass market, microtrenching was (not surprisingly) more cost effective. In due course the first one went bust and begat the second, reversely-named, one. Both begat lots of disappointed customers around the world; next in line looks likely to be Peterborough:
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/6130-another-gigabit-city-for-the-uk.html
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Thursday 12th December 2013 21:25 GMT Yet Another Anonymous coward
Must have been a serious theft
How many cables must they have cut in different locations across the capital to defeat the state of the art enterprise grade, strategic, redundant and reliable fibre backbone that British Telecom operate?
Surely a company that is so mighty that it is the only one considered to bid for most government projects wouldn't have a system that lost service becuase of a single break at one location?
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Friday 13th December 2013 06:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
Mental thieves
As I call them, should be sentenced to death under the Treason Act.
All the Govt needs to do is have telecoms and power cables classed as "national security infrastructure" and have a Parliamentary exemption to the EU Human Rights Act that applies in the case of "threats to national security" and this would allow copper/etc thieves to be legally terminated.
Simplez!
AC, because they might find out where I live and send me a poloniumgram.
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Friday 13th December 2013 15:46 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Wrong question?
Openreach don't only do "existing (shared or otherwise) infrastructure" they also do plenty business providing wholesale and infrastructure connectivity for ISPs and other companies besides. (e.g. http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/ethernetservices/ethernetbackhauldirect/ebd.do).
I'd imagine Sky had dedicated (Openreach) physical connectivity (fibres) between the sky equipment in the BT exchanges affected and a Sky core network node (PoP) somewhere out to the west of London. I'd guess that ordering "diverse" routes (I.e. double-backhaul via geographically-separate paths) for every exchange would be quite pricey for what *should* be a rare event... Your exchange is a SPOF (single point of failure) because it would be uneconomic to have redundancy ..
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Monday 16th December 2013 23:55 GMT Alan Brown
"I'd guess that ordering "diverse" routes (I.e. double-backhaul via geographically-separate paths) for every exchange would be quite pricey for what *should* be a rare event"
You'd guess wrong.
You'd also guess that "diverse" routes wouldn't end up in the same duct - but they often do and it's _impossible_ to get a written undertaking from OpenWound that they won't do it (We've been trying to get them to guarantee "geographic divertity" means just that for over 5 years, ever since we learned that the fibres running out of our premises in opposite directions meet up 5 miles away and sheare the same duct for the next 35 miles.)