Internet service provider Brightspeed said nearly 80 copper wire thefts have occurred since May in Fayetteville, NC, and surrounding areas, which have knocked out internet and phone service and cost thousands of dollars in repair bills, according to WRAL-FM.
“They’re knocking [out] subdivisions from being able to call 911. If they don’t have cell service [and] now they don’t have a landline? They’re stuck,” Mark Williams of Brightspeed told WRAL.
Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN, are also facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in repair costs because of copper thieves targeting city street lamps, according to KSTP-TV. The thefts have cost the city of Minneapolis $200,000 in 2023, KSTP-TV reported, and more than 300 reports of street light outages remain unresolved.
Incidents of copper wire theft are also surging in Los Angeles from 500 cases a decade ago to 6,000 last year and 6,500 the year before that, according to Spectrum News. The city, which has 200 technicians overseeing 225,000 streetlights, can’t keep up with the thefts, leaving entire city blocks in the dark for months at a time.
The problem is being addressed by the LA City Attorney’s Office by going after the metal recyclers that buy the ill-gotten metal. A pilot program of 1,000 solar-powered lights will also be launched next year.
By J. Sharpe Smith, Inside Towers Technology Editor
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