Re: Cable Theft - help required
 

Teesside, is the Virgin Media capital of copper theft, followed closely by certain areas of the capital.

In reality there is very little you can do about it. You can't lock all the chambers (although in certain areas in certain cities, this has been done)

It's not just copper, you get many would be theives cutting fibre, to check if it's copper - causes mayhem.

All you can do is get the police to visit scrap dealer and advise them not to take copper cabling from neferious types. If the scrap dealers don't buy it then no-one will nick it.

Re: Cable Theft - help required
 

Yep and if the scrap dealer doesn't buy it then he loses out on a lot of profit and another dodgy dealer down the road will take it ;)


You'll never get all the dealers to be 100% honest all the time :rolleyes:

Re: Cable Theft - help required
 

If it happens at the same place every time, employ somebody with an airgun. ;)

Re: Cable Theft - help required
 

Yep and get done for firearms offences!!! Way to go!!! ;) :p:

Re: Cable Theft - help required
 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/sussex/8333774.stm

Will it ever stop?

Re: Cable Theft - help required
 

Yep, we used to find air guns were used a lot with the old overhead cable TV systems. The kids would shoot at the cables and when the got lucky it shorted from inner to outer conductor tripping the line power and shutting down the network.

Oh I see, you meant VM use air guns:)

The cases back when I worked for ntl where main hub fibres had been cut were by disgruntled ex-employees recently made redundant, or contractors that had not been paid or laid off.

Re: Cable Theft - help required
 

Right - my role in the insurance industry means that I've been busy digging up more info about this ...and, although naturally cynical, I actually think it's quite encouraging.

It seems that the police, utilities, EIG (church insurer) and smart water have teamed up with the recyclers (Sita, EMR and Booths) to close down the commercial outlets for stolen cable/metal. The problem they've had in the past is finding a surefire way of identifying stolen cable/metal but up stepped SmartWater. They have developed a solution that will withstand the smelting process (its been tested, I'm assured).

Now they can identify stolen cable/metal, the police are now motivated to hit the dodgy scrap metal dealers (160+ in the last 6 months) and the recyclers are refusing to buy anything marked with smart water.

So, it seems to be coordinated, joined up thinking - it's a case of 'watch this space but early results look promising - so fingers crossed!

Re: Cable Theft - help required
 

in my job we have numerous ocassions where cable gets nicked, sometimes it's fresh stuff on drums - not exactly stuff you can just carry away (usually gets chopped into short lengths and gets carted off).

or on a few of our sites, they have just pulled it out live - 415v and 100A+ up your jacksey - no thankyou. but they know what they're doing, they cut through the armour and into one phase and the nuetral and spike it which in turn trips the protection breaker and thus making the cable dead, which can then be chopped and carted.

and with the cables we use there is a lot of copper to be had - and landfills are hard places to watch due to locations.

Re: Cable Theft - help required
 

Is the amount of copper used in fibre optics worth the bother of digging it all up and stealing it?

Re: Cable Theft - help required
 

no -if a fibre cable has any copper its usually just a couple of control pairs for switching purposes most don't have any ,its the local loop where you find the copper telephony cables .

Re: Cable Theft - help required
 

Is that from the cabinet to the subscribers' properties?

Re: Cable Theft - help required
 

not really its from the mux cab[level 3/main] to the level4/cab in your street
from the street cab to property is worthless .

in the bt network copper runs from the exchange to the street cab and on to the poles . they don't normally use fiber in there local network .