RSSTime Warner Asks for Help in Texas Copper Theft
By Ed Oswald | Published August 6, 2007, 2:10 PM
Time Warner is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of persons involved in a suspected copper theft in Texas.
The company said that someone vandalized the fiber-optic lines in conduits that ran through the I-35 underpass near the Trinity River in Dallas. The incidents occurred on June 19 and July 24, officials say.
About 45,000 customers temporarily lost phone, Internet, and television in June, and over 16,000 more lost service as a result of the second incident. Time Warner said the cost of the damge ran in the thousands of dollars.
"...Our Digital Phone customers los[t] access to 911 and other critical services as a result of these criminal actions, we're going to do everything in our power to fight back and prevent it from happening again," Time Warner Cable North Texas President Robert Moel said.
Copper theft is becoming an increasing problem for telecommunications companies. In February, Verizon said that the problem is so bad in West Virginia that in some cases it was cutting service to first responders, posing a possible public safety threat.
Those with information in the Dallas incident are asked to either call a special telephone number, 1-888-824-8041, or e-mail dallas.security@twcable.com.
Its sold to China and North Korea
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|Copper theft is a major problem in areas where I live. These bas****s break into houses when you are work to steal your plumbing.
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|But I need that copper. Hey, if they didnt want people to mess with it, they should have buried it.
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|I live in the Dallas area and I know for a fact that the location they are speaking of in the article is a known "homeless camp" to about 50-100 down and out people. While I don't condone their actions, it's not all that surprising to me that it happened.
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|Stealing policemen. Will people stop at nothing?
Seriously though, can't they track this stuff to scrap dealers somehow?
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|Stealing policemen. Will people stop at nothing?
*laughs*
That was brilliant. Thanks.
can't they track this stuff to scrap dealers somehow?
I'm sure there are undocumented exchanges, just like any other stolen merchandise. Copper is becoming a rare commodity nowadays, so it wouldn't be too much of a shock to see a growing black market for the stuff.
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|sounds to me like someone was digging somewere and they havent a clue where the brake in the line was witch takes time to find. angry paying people need to hear something. fiber optic cable copper is very very thin very thin.
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|Happened here last week. The city apparently missed all of the commercials telling us to call before digging and wiped out the entire towns cable for roughly 8 hours.
Asked our City Council if they were aware of our utilities requests to call before digging; Other than a laugh from the rest of the people, the only response we got was the usual, "We're doing everything we can to make sure this does not get repeated."
*shrug*
Not a big deal, really, but it's nice to know we've got real rocket scientists doing our city planning.
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|i work for a wireless carrier and we have a tower up by the city dump and the city employees were building a new road and cut the telco to our site and knocked out 80% of 911 for the town and didn't even bothere calling it in any of the times they did it. first time me and qwest showed up out there and the guy was like ya i dug up the line up there somewhere and he just re buried so we had to dig it back up...
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|Well, at least mine isn't the only city with morons hiring clueless contractors...
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|I used to do cable in my area, we hated Verizon around here for digging up our lines... Also DirectTV while they didnt dig up the lines they would go out to a house use our boxes to wire up a house (no big deal there) but while they did that they would also chop our lines running into the box... *curses them out for all the times he had to dig for something that could have been a 5 minute job*
You think of all the people that would be aware of digging Verizon would be near the top ?
Weird that copper has become so expensive... hehehe to many Pennies ?
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|Since around 1982 pennies have been predominantly Zinc with a copper skin on them.
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|clueless contractor's is a universal problem
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|yeah thats why im hordeing like 200 pounds of pre 1982 pennies (could be more then 200 pounds but I know I cant pick up the half full 5 gallon water jug lol) I figure if I keep saving them up at this rate the copper will be worth far more then the pennies !
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|"clueless contractor's is a universal problem" Highschool drop outs need jobs too !!! lol
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|high school! i think some of my contractor's didn't even make it threw elementary
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|Maybe the guy didn't speak enlgish /sarcism couldn't dial the # for 911
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|That's true, if you file the edge all the way around to reveal the zinc underneath and drop it in muriatic acid, you will be left with the copper shell afetr it stops bubbling.
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|I thought for sure you guys would entice SOMEONE to come out and be like, "HEY!" :P
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|didn't even make it threw elementary
Did you? :p
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|Maybe they cant use computers ? sort of like making fun of the Amish online hehehehe....
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