Man Arrested for Knocking Out Openreach’s Broadband in Falmouth UPDATE

The Devon & Cornwall Police (DCP) in England have arrested a man in his 30s on suspicion of causing criminal damage to Openreach’s broadband network in the town of Falmouth over the weekend. The incident knocked out local internet connectivity to around 100 premises (inc. many local businesses) and could cost up to £100,000 to repair.

At the time of writing the details are still quite thin. But it appears as if the man cut several telecoms cables at around 7pm on Saturday evening, when it was still modestly bright. This prompted numerous calls to the police from local businesses and concerned members of the public, which may help to explain why he was caught so quickly.

The outage caused significant disruption for local businesses over a busy weekend, which had been trading well due to the good weather and start of Easter Holidays. According to The Packet, Openreach currently estimates that the network repairs will cost up to £50,000, but they’ve warned that the full cost might yet climb to £100,000.

Andy Shepherd, Openreach’s Director of Resilience and Integrity, said:

“We’d like to thank the business owners and residents of Falmouth for their patience while we’ve worked on repairs to our network after it was damaged on Saturday night.

Many customers are already back online but we’re still sorting out more complex repairs for 35 remaining premises.

We’re working closely with the Town Manager and Devon and Cornwall Police and are pleased that a man has now been arrested on suspicion of causing criminal damage.

We’re also really proud of our engineers who have done their best to get the network back up and running as quickly as possible. These events are hugely disruptive, put vulnerable people at risk and cost local businesses dearly, especially at the beginning of the tourist season. They also pull our engineers away from other important work and are expensive to repair.

Anyone still experiencing problems with their phone or broadband should report it to their provider wherever possible and we’ll be informed.”

We have requested further details from Openreach on the damage and current situation.

UPDATE 9th April 2025 @ 8:15am

Openreach has confirmed that all the damage done to their copper network (that they’re aware of) has now been repaired, although they were still working on the fibre as of last night. The man who was arrested has now been charged in court with criminal damage and remanded in custody. But due to the police investigation, Openreach are currently quite limited in the details they can give out.