Telephone cable stolen again

TMC formulated on Wednesday :

No, no scrap value that I am aware of - but then copper telephone cable has none either, it has very little copper content.

Fibre may have little scrap value, but that doesn't stop the thick pikeys stealing it anyway, not knowing what it is...

In message , TMC writes

Move to, as they say in UKRM, a less pikey area

Nothing been nicked round here since the summer when they plunged half of NW London into darkness

if its copper coated steel, adding notices to that effect _might_ deter people.

NT

if its copper coated steel, adding notices to that effect _might_ deter people.

Assuming that the culprits are literate!

Peter Crosland

In article , Harry Bloomfield scribeth thus

We've seen Mr Pikey nick Six inches of copper braiding recently.

You might wonder about the sense these people have it must have cost them more in petrol than what they got as scrap;!..

Unless the petrol was half-inched as well;(..

A local industrial estate has had half a kilometre of phone cable serving it taken on four separate occasions in the past six months and that appparently has not justified the change. However, on the radio, BT claimed to have installed monitors on the lines that will alert them if they are cut again.

Colin Bignell

Perhaps a neat bit of Time-domain reflectometry so they can judge exactly to the nearest metre where the wires have been cut, so they can send some burly lads round?

In article , Nightjar

They were, understandably, being a bit vague about exactly what they were doing. However, it has been the same two manholes used each time, so they may not need anything that sophisticated.

Colin Bignell

Never understood why they don't just securely lock manhole covers. Yes I know lost key etc. but it can't be that hard surely?

Andy gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

So there's either a monumentally huge collection of keys, one per manhole, with an almost 100% guarantee that the bloke who needs to gain access won't have the right one - or they're all keyed alike, in which case how long do you think it'd take the scrotes to get a copy?

Always assuming they didn't just use brute force and ignorance to get round it, of course, thereby hugely increasing the repair costs.

When it comes down to it - all you can do is lock the cover to the frame. And the frame can always be removed from the tarmac...

New I shouldn't have posted that ;o)

And locking it shut would mean leaving what would have to be a fairly fine tolerance locking system in close proximity to the groundwater, rain, and all the other insults such things suffer at ground level. Manholes can be hard enough to lift even if they're not locked down, IME.

T-key locks on vehicle access flaps are bad enough.....

I think the only thing that works is word of mouth ...

It seems to work like this:

Some toerag nicks a length of telephone cable, about which there is a lot of (local) publicity.

Every other villain in the vicinity thinks it's a good idea and, suddenly, there's cable being nicked all over the place.

Then, as they all realise that what they've nicked is a large lump of plastic with minimal copper added and, no doubt, moan about it to their mates, the word gets around that it isn't worth the effort and the problem goes away ...

Of course, by this time, the initial news has spread and the next thing you know, ther's another outbreak at the other end of the county ...!

We had it happen here twice within a short period a few years ago but, thankfully, it hasn't happened again since ...

Virgin Media do have keys, but we have their roadside cabinets around here that all feature doors that flap in the wind, they are permanently open.

Most are unlocked by the cable installers who fail to walk back down the road to secure, and others are unlocked (and locks broken) by dumb peeps up to some mischief - perhaps they can reconnect their cable service, "it's only them wires disconnected, ain't it?"

Folks who have moved away from BT to cable rely on the security of these things to call 999.

Slightly worrying :-(

Adrian C gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Assuming, of course, they don't own a mobile. Or have any neighbours with a BT line and/or a mobile.

Just as easy to access most BT street boxes as well, be they green boxes above ground or a cable joint in a hole.

This is a supposedly rough area, but in ten years I've only seen one Telewest/Virgin cabinet inappropriately open.