US carriers join forces to fight incidents of copper cable theft, stop disruptions to Internet services | Infinium-tech

The Internet and Television Association in the US posted a worrying report – there were 18,327 incidents of theft and vandalism that affected the network of wires that bring Internet connectivity to customers’ homes. To put this in perspective, this has affected approximately 12 million people. This rate works out to 1,527 incidents per month or an average of 50 incidents per day. And it’s getting worse – a 59% increase since 2024. you can read the report Here (PDF).

Now, the country’s top 3 carriers – AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon – have joined the strike initiative. This dramatic acronym stands for “Strategic Threat Response and Infrastructure Knowledge Exchange” and is intended to help service providers coordinate and plan better security for their networks.

cut copper cables

Copper wire is often stolen to be resold at the value of the metal. But optic cables are also at risk – which are often cut in acts of sabotage. In fact, industry leaders want to label these as terrorist acts, as they could affect people’s access to hospitals, schools and emergency services.

The copper-based infrastructure was already in poor condition as it was laid many years ago and the cables and equipment were not well maintained. The accelerated rate of attacks is prompting service providers to replace such older installations with fiber cables, because they do not have resale value – and because fiber certainly offers much higher Internet speeds.

Source