After an outage on Thursday morning, services were back up and running by late afternoon, according to Cogeco, but the incident resulted in $8,000 in repair costs due to vandalism.
After an outage on Thursday morning, services were back up and running by late afternoon, according to Cogeco, but the incident resulted in $8,000 in repair costs due to vandalism.
Read more: Cogeco services in Oakville and surrounding areas interrupted due to vandalism
The company is currently working with the Halton Regional Police Service (HRPS) as the incident not only resulted in property damage but also posed a public safety issue as the home landline connection was affected, spokeswoman Kristen Curry said.
“Unfortunately, incidents like this are becoming more common in Canada’s telecommunications industry,” Curry said. “While we cannot speculate on the exact motives, these acts are often attempts to steal copper for scrap metal.”
Curry says Cogeco doesn’t use copper in its fiber optic cables, which means cut wires are usually left over because fiber optic cables have no resale value.
Curry says the $8,000 would cover the splicing process to rejoin the severed fiber optic cables, as well as material and labor costs.
Anyone with information can contact police at 905-825-4777 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or haltoncrimestoppers.ca.
