The big picture: Internet outages typically occur due to faulty equipment, accidents, or adverse weather conditions. Deliberate sabotage is rare, and incidents resulting from a mistaken search for copper should be even rarer. But telecoms say it's a growing problem, as a recent major incident near Los Angeles shows.
Suburbs near Los Angeles suffered a widespread internet outage over Father's Day weekend. Authorities later confirmed that an unsuccessful copper wire theft was the cause.
A spokesperson from Spectrum Internet told the Los Angeles Times that someone tried to cut fiber lines located on poles in Van Nuys late Saturday night, causing many of the company's customers in LA and surrounding areas to lose service throughout Sunday. Since fiber internet cables don't incorporate copper, the thieves left empty-handed. The perpetrators remain at large.
Repair crews spent Father's Day performing thousands of cable splices, with service largely restored by Monday. Spectrum promised to compensate affected customers with one day of credit.
Although the cause of the outage seems unusual, the company said that similar incidents have occurred in recent years as rising copper prices make the wires an attractive target for thieves.
Copper futures have more than doubled since early 2020. This surge is likely driven by increased demand for the metal across various industries.
Copper, a good electrical conductor, is essential for electric vehicles, which have recently surged in popularity. The International Energy Forum estimates that copper mining must expand significantly in the coming decades to meet EV demand.
Copper might also become an important component in semiconductor manufacture as companies engineer increasingly smaller nodes. Applied Materials believes that a copper wiring solution could facilitate the development of 2nm chips. Rising copper prices are also partly to blame for the growing cost of PC components.
Much of the copper sold nowadays is recycled from obsolete infrastructure. Last year, British circular economy company TXO estimated that hundreds of thousands of metric tons of old wires, worth several billion dollars, could be recycled over the next decade. The transition from copper to fiber-based telecommunications infrastructure – explaining why the LA saboteurs didn't encounter any metal – is a primary driver of recycling.
Spectrum is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. Anyone with information should contact the local authorities or call Spectrum at (833) 404-TIPS or 8477.
Thieves cut fiber lines in failed copper theft, causing Spectrum outage
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