Vandals Cut Fiber-Optic Lines, Causing Outage For Spectrum Internet Subscribers (arstechnica.com) 42
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Subscribers in Southern California of Spectrum's Internet service experienced outages over the weekend following what company officials said was an attempted theft of copper lines located in Van Nuys, a suburb located 20 miles from downtown Los Angeles. The people behind the incident thought they were targeting copper lines, the officials wrote in a statement Sunday. Instead, they cut into fiber optic cables. The cuts caused service disruptions for subscribers in Van Nuys and surrounding areas. Spectrum has since restored service and is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the apprehension of the people responsible. Spectrum will also credit affected customers one day of service on their next bill.
"Criminal acts of network vandalism have become an issue affecting the entire telecommunications industry, not just Spectrum, largely due to the increase in the price of precious metals," the officials wrote in a statement issued Sunday. "These acts of vandalism are not only a crime, but also affect our customers, local businesses and potentially emergency services. Spectrum's fiber lines do not include any copper." Outage information service Downdetector showed that thousands of subscribers in and around Van Nuys reported outages starting a little before noon on Sunday. Within about 12 hours, the complaint levels returned to normal. Spectrum officials told the Los Angeles Times that personnel had to splice thousands of fiber lines to restore service to affected subscribers.
"Criminal acts of network vandalism have become an issue affecting the entire telecommunications industry, not just Spectrum, largely due to the increase in the price of precious metals," the officials wrote in a statement issued Sunday. "These acts of vandalism are not only a crime, but also affect our customers, local businesses and potentially emergency services. Spectrum's fiber lines do not include any copper." Outage information service Downdetector showed that thousands of subscribers in and around Van Nuys reported outages starting a little before noon on Sunday. Within about 12 hours, the complaint levels returned to normal. Spectrum officials told the Los Angeles Times that personnel had to splice thousands of fiber lines to restore service to affected subscribers.
Good Old San Fernando Valley (Score:1)
At least the air quality has improved.
But it still sucks.
Re: Good Old San Fernando Valley (Score:2)
Shit, you're telling me the air quality was even worse here during the 60s?
Re: Good Old San Fernando Valley (Score:4, Interesting)
Shit, you're telling me the air quality was even worse here during the 60s?
Air pollution was WAY worse in the 1960s. Incomprehensibly worse. I was unable to breathe deeply without pain in the lungs and involuntary coughing, and my eyes were constantly red and stinging from the insanely high levels of nitrogen dioxide in the air. There was a photochemical smog layer so thick that you couldn't see the hillsides of the Angeles National Forest to the east. It was miserable. We moved out of L.A. County in 1968. When I visited a friend's home in Pasadena in the late 1970s it was worse still...after a nice lunch at his home I could barely breathe. I couldn't take the pollution and rather than spend the night as planned I had to drive home.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: RUSSIAAAAAAA! (Score:3, Insightful)
Russia, Iran, and North Korea have nothing on good old American ingenuity.
Nobody fucks the USA as hard or as deep as the USA.
Re: (Score:2)
As clearly demonstrated by the 2016 and 2024 election results. And heck, let's throw in the 2020 election as well, for good measure.
Re: (Score:2)
We've last 50 years defending democracy by ignoring our own.
Leave a little copper out (Score:2)
Or take a lesson from urban street-parkers. Leave a sign, "Doors unlocked, nothing of value inside".
Re: (Score:1)
More police is not the solution to food insecurity and poverty.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Or you could get a police department that protects its citizens and tries to stop car theft.
More police is not the solution to food insecurity and poverty.
The american education system has failed you.
Re: (Score:3)
Perhaps if it had adequate funding... ?
Re: Leave a little copper out (Score:5, Informative)
"Perhaps if it had adequate funding"
LAUSD has about half the number of students they had 20 years ago. They have more than double the number of administrators and about 20 more teachers over that same time scale -- and the budget of LAUSD is over $18 billion -- up from $8 billion 20 years ago. The number of students in that time also went from closer to 800,000 to about 400,000 now.
What this doesn't include are the various city, county and state bond initiatives that added additional funding (which came at increased per dollar spent due to interest on the loans).
The amount of money we're spending is not justified based on the student population. The number of administrators is not justified by student population.
And "oh". Student performance have continued drop.
It's not a funding problem. It's a gross mismanagement problem along wtih turning LAUSD jobs in to "rewards" for both union employees and political supporters.
Re: (Score:2)
and the budget of LAUSD is over $18 billion -- up from $8 billion 20 years ago.
So only $1bn more in inflation adjusted terms in present value? Or $650million in value from back then? Be careful comparing numbers over different time scales, especially when discussing education. Yes funding isn't the underlying problem, but it's also no where near as rosy as you paint it to be.
Re: (Score:2)
And I got those numbers backwards in the calculator, it's only $4.5bn more in present numbers. But point remains the same. You need to inflation adjust any comparative dollars over time.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Sure but it failed you too.
Re: (Score:2)
All of them turned out to not be criminals.
It's not just poverty.
Re: Leave a little copper out (Score:2)
Umm... Have you ever even been here before? It's always like this. Whether set intentionally or not, LA is always a fucking dumpster fire.
Re: Leave a little copper out (Score:1)
Why isn't an inflation-proofed basic income the best policy response?
Re: (Score:2)
they take anything now (Score:4, Interesting)
In the last 6 months, around our office:
The brass screws on the big backflow valves for the Fire Sprinklers were cutoff/stolen from 6 valves.
A fire hydrant was stolen.
The copper pipe for 3 different water mains was stolen. These were fixed and they did it again.
Now the hydrants have special locks around the bolts, and everything else is coved with locking cages.
They come prepared, shut off the water and use tools.
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder the same thing. I assume its drug addicts. A guy from the city said they've had around 60 hydrants stolen in a year.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
What if you legalized drugs? How much are you willing to pay to force your fickle, arbitrary moral agenda on others?
How many drugs did you have in mind?
Weed has been legal where I live for several years now. Hasn't reduced crime any ... just increased impaired drivers.
Re: (Score:3)
How has that worked out for Amsterdam? Portland?
I don't have all the answers. Many of the issues we have where I live stem from lack of affordable housing. Maybe we need to fix housing first.
Re: they take anything now (Score:1)
When you do drugs how does housing that polices you help?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:they take anything now (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess I'm just naive, but is there really enough value to make it worthwhile?
The type of people who make a living from stealing cables are not the type of people who think clearly about the financial costs of their endeavors. I had a bathtub stolen from the front garden during a renovation. 4 people came in the middle of the night (neighbour showed me a video she captured) with a SUV and trailer and took it (cast iron tub so it took 4 people). It was old and in very bad condition. Total value for scrap metal didn't exceed $30 (I checked because I was going to send it to the recycler myself but was waiting to borrow a truck from my parents).
That's a profit of $7.5 / person for what would involve a midnight heist, driving through the city and then driving the day after to a recycler all while technically committing a crime. That would have taken them a good hour maybe more. The SUV was an ancient Ford Maverick, a fuel guzzler, it cost them money to come here, and even if they drove the minimum distance to a metal recycler that would have cost them a few quid as well.
For the record I live in a place where minimum wage at the time for an adult was $18 / hour.
It's not a question of value. It's a question of intelligence. These people are poor and desperate for a reason, and they are kept poor and desperate by making poor decisions.
Re: (Score:3)
Sounds like you got the smart ones. The ones in TFS seem to have stolen some fibre optics thinking it was copper.
FWIW, in the UK, BT have started putting up signs on telegraph poles saying "Warning: Fibre Optic cables overhead", just to make sure the idiots don't think there's copper up there (actually, there is copper as well, but most of the new stuff is fibre). Then again, given the poor reading abilities of some of the people nicking metals, one wonders if they should put up sculptures of lights or some
Go after the overhead cables! (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
the complaint levels returned to normal. (Score:2)
Not vandals (Score:2)
Widespread (Score:2)
The service disruption was not localized to Van Nuys. I live in eastern Ventura County about 22 miles from Van Nuys and have Internet service through Spectrum. During the disruption, I kept losing my Internet connection.
When I called Spectrum about the problem, I was told that, not only Internet service, but also cable TV and VOIP phone service was affected. I was also told that the problem would be corrected by 5:30pm Pacific time. It was actually corrected sooner. Also, we never lost cable TV. We do
Re: (Score:2)
According to the 17 June Los Angeles Times, the outage extended from western Ventura County (including Ojai and the city of Ventura) to central Orange County (including Anaheim),
Spectrum incompetent at routing (Score:2)