Repairs to Damaged Telecommunications Systems Should be Completed Tuesday Night

Update: June 5, 2012   3:30 p.m.:

According to AT&T spokesman John Britton the copper theives who struck Saturday night stole about 500 feet of "900 pair cable" - a telecommunications cable holding 900 pairs of copper wire.

Britton said approximately 1,000 AT&T customers were affected by the outage and that repairs shold be finished by tonight.  

Comcast spokesman Andrew Johnson said his company still doesn't know the exact number of customers affected when a Comcast fiber optic line near the intersection of Rollingwood Drive and Benicia Road was severed."We think it was several thousand customers who were affected," said Johnson. "My best guess is between two and five thousand customers.

June 5, 2012  Noon:

Sunday night was a busy one for thieves looking for some copper to steal.  It was frustrating too.  Both for the thieves who cut into a Comcast cable and found it full of fiber optic strands and for Comcast repair crews who were called in two nights in a row to repair the damage.  Thieves were able to steal some phone company cable strung on poles on the north side Interstate 780.

An AT&T spokesman has so far been unavailable to comment.

According to Comcast spokesman Andrew Johnson the thieves struck first around 3 a.m. Monday morning, cutting the cable while looking for copper wire.  The thieves struck near the corner of Rollingwood Drive  and Benicia Road near Glen Cove.  The line they cut carries the signal into Benicia and it took about five hours to repair.

The severed line impacted cable television, telephone and internet services for Comcast customers in Benicia.

Thieves struck again Tuesday morning cutting the same line approximately 1,000 feet from where it was cut Monday morning.  Johnson thinks it was the same thieves who thought they had cut a different line.

“Unfortunately the criminals who continue to perpetuate this crime are not sophisticated enough to realize that Comcast’s network uses fiber-optic technology, not copper, to provide service to our customers,” said Johnson.  “These knuckleheads are damaging property that contain no copper, just hundreds of strands of fiber-optic lines that carry light.”

The damage affects some cell phone users too.  According to Johnson, the severed line carries information to and from two cell phone towers in Benicia.

“Comcast will continue to work with local law enforcement to apprehend the parties who are damaging our equipment,” said Johnson.  “Since the willful destruction of telecommunications networks is a federal crime, we’ll aggressively work to see any suspects who may be captured prosecuted in federal court.”

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