Copper Cable Theft Knocks Out Broadband in Worcester Suburb

Many homes and businesses in the St Johns suburb of Worcester have been left without access to both broadband and phone services for several days, which occurred after criminals ripped up two of Openreach’s (BT) core underground copper telecoms cables from the ground (aka – Metal Theft) on Tuesday.

Such criminals clearly have no regard whatsoever for the significant impact they have on local residents and businesses. The theft itself is understood to have affected about 2,000 lines in the area, although most have now been reconnected. Nevertheless it’s possible that a few properties may have to wait until Sunday before they’re fully back online.

Metal thefts like this usually occur through organised gangs and often target critical infrastructure in more rural areas, where police response times are slower. In this case they appear to have targeted a busier location, which might hopefully prove to be their undoing as it may make the perpetrators easier to identify and track.

Sadly thefts like this occur every year and recently there has been a spate of similar incidents across parts of Cambridgeshire (here).

A Spokesperson for Openreach said (Droitwich Advertiser):

“We are working as quickly as we can do to restore service following the damage to our network. It’s a complicated and time-consuming task, but our engineers are making good progress and some people are already re-connected. We’re hopeful that everyone will be back up and running by Sunday at the latest.

We have drafted in people from neighbouring areas as this is quite a big job, time-consuming, and made all of the more difficult due to the weather (which I understand is very wet in Worcester!).”

Repairing large sections of significantly damaged cable like this is no easy task and thus a lengthy period of downtime is often unavoidable. Openreach has a partnership with Crimestoppers, which means they tend to offer a reward of up to £1,000 for information on these sorts of thefts (if it leads to the arrest and conviction of those responsible). If you have any information on this incident, please contact them on 0800 555 111 or use the online form – everyone stays 100% anonymous (information passed directly to the police will not qualify for a reward).

In the future such thefts may become less of a problem as the national network increasingly adopts fibre optic technology, which has no value to criminals and obviously can’t be sold to dodgy scrap metal dealers. However it’s worth noting that criminal gangs aren’t always clever enough to know whether or not the cable they’re damaging is made of copper or fibre before ripping it out of the ground.