As described in here
www.thinkbroadband.com/news/4734-cable-theft-takes-4000-homes-and-businesses-offline-in-byfleet.html
Its just down the road from me (to my local exchange but in another direction) and Open Reach are still dangling feet down holes to replace it all. This beggars belief, its right alongside an A road, the A245 parvis road, with houses down one side. How the hell did they do it and not get caught?
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...How the hell did they do it and not get caught?...
Perhaps they kitted themselves out to look like a maintenance gang.
Reminds me of two guys who turned up at my local pub saying they had come to change the fruit machine.
They loaded the old machine onto a sack truck, wheeled it out of the premises and were never seen again.
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>> ...How the hell did they do it and not get caught?...
>>
>> Perhaps they kitted themselves out to look like a maintenance gang.
They lifted 4 manhole covers, alongside a main road, about 50 yards apart, and chopped out 150 yards of cable out with chainsaws.
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Similar happened 3 or 4 times on an A road not far from where I work. No sooner had BT replaced the cables (at least a weeks work), 2 or 3 days later the new cables were stolen. Replaced again, to then be stolen again, etc.
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I don't think it's surprising at all. Gangs variously working for BT, Electricity, Water, Council, TV cable, "motorway maintenance", and a host of agencies and sub-contractors are constantly digging up the roads. If I saw a man in a high-vis jacket pulling cables out of a manhole I'd assume he was supposed to be.
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Got it in one, Cliff.
The utilities use so many different contractors these days it is very difficult to tell which are kosher and which are not.
Have seen a BT poster for their staff which showed several different street scenes and asked if you could spot the real ones, I'm reliably told that over 80% of staff couldn't get it right so not really surprising that the public can't.
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This is an economic crime where the impact is significantly more than the cost of the cable involved. Punishment must be likewise!
Terrorism charge? 20 years? Equivalent for the scrap merchants taking it. Perhaps a new law preventing scrap dealers from dealing in cash and requiring proof of ownership.
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. Punishment must be likewise!
They were going to put them to the "chair" but someone nicked the cable.
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Cable theft - Iffy
