Posted: 13th Dec, 2010 By: MarkJ

It's just emerged that thousands of Virgin Media UK customers in
Sutton were left without television, phone and broadband ISP services for up to 48 hours at the end of last month (29th November 2010) after thieves dug two holes in the ground at
Morden Road and stole
1,500 metres of fibre optic cable.
The
Sutton Guardian newspaper claims that the criminals were looking to resell the cables valuable materials. However, it's more likely that they made a
huge mistake because the really valuable stuff is actually in older "
copper" lines.
A Virgin Media Statement read:
"We take this issue extremely seriously and we are working with the police to prevent future occurrences. We would encourage anyone with any information relating to this incident to contact the local police immediately or call the Virgin Media security line on freephone 0800 096 7800."
Earlier this summer BT claimed that
£770 million was the estimated cost, across all industries in the UK, for metal theft. By contrast fibre optic cable is usually incredibly cheap to buy and not normally worth the risk.
It's known that BT uses
SmartWater, a sophisticated forensic marking liquid that is unique to a particular location, to mark the outer shell and inner core of its cable, along with tools and other equipment. This will allow police to irrefutably identify where any stolen items have come from.
One advantage of putting more fibre optic cable in the ground should be, assuming criminals are keeping pace with the changing infrastructure, making such thefts less common.