Vandals cut major U.S. broadband provider's fiber-optic lines 4x in one week

April 9, 2013
Suddenlink Communications (St. Louis, MO) recently suffered four different outages in a single week due to a fiber-optic line-cutting spree.

Broadband DSLReports.com's Karl Bode recently reported that Suddenlink Communications (St. Louis, MO) , one of the top 10 cable broadband services providers in the U.S., recently suffered four different line outages in a single week -- most likely due to vandals breaking into the provider's vaults and severing fiber-optic connections.

Related: TIA task group exploring security measures for cabling systems

The penultimate incident of fiber-optic line cutting resulted in 10,000 customers losing connectivity for nearly a 24-hour span. The report states that while the incidients could conceivably be the work of a disgruntled employee, "one local contractor [familiar with the situation] believes it's probably copper thieves that are too stupid to realize that the vaults they're breaking into don't have much copper in them."

Full Story:Suddenlink Saw Four Fiber Lines Cut This Week (dslreports.com)

More: Cut data center fiber darkens Wikipedia

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