Samiam303
2007-08-26, 08:16 PM
Anyone else hear about this? It's a really sad reflection on our city that people are cutting off pieces of the internet in hopes of selling them. :tongue:
The Article (http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/business-3/1187860624160480.xml&coll=2)
Because I have a feeling it'll be cycled off cleveland.com soon:
Notice your Internet connection acting up earlier this week?
You weren't alone.
Cleveland vandals - possibly copper thieves - probably caused delays for millions of Internet users around the world on Sunday night and much of Monday.
Near Euclid Avenue and East 65th Street, someone apparently used a chain saw Sunday afternoon to cut through a high-capacity Internet trunk line, part of the backbone of the Internet. Although the thieves may have been seeking copper, there is no copper in fiber-optic cable.
When workers went to fix the underground cables, they found that the coil of replacement cable they brought from a warehouse had been damaged by a gunshot, making it unusable.
The setback meant things weren't brought back up to speed until Monday afternoon.
The damaged trunk line is owned by Adesta LLC of Nebraska but is leased by several Internet wholesalers, including Cogent Communications, Level 3 and TeliaSonera.
Those companies control access to the Internet backbone, which is made up of ultra-high-bandwidth connections among major cities around the world, and sell it to local service providers such as Time Warner Cable and AT&T.
Cleveland is one of the country's biggest Internet hubs, with trunk lines - bundles of fiber-optic cables - running from here to Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C., said Scot Rourke, president and chief executive of Cleveland's broadband initiative, OneCommunity.
The sabotaged trunk line didn't entirely cut people off from the Internet, said Dave Shaeffer, chief executive of Cogent. Instead, Internet traffic was rerouted until the problem was fixed.
That meant slower data transfer times for millions of people who were trying to access information that normally would come through Cleveland.
"The positive thing is that everything worked," Shaeffer said. "Everything kept running."
Adesta reported the incident to Cleveland police Monday morning.
"It appears as though individuals were attempting to steal copper wire," the company said in a written statement.
Another unsuccessful copper theft was attempted Tuesday, when a Massillon man was electrocuted while trying to steal wire from a power substation.
Thieves in Ohio and across the nation are increasingly turning to the highest-quality sources of copper, often found on utility poles and electrical boxes, and then selling the wiring to scrap dealers.
Copper thefts have increased across the nation as the salvage price for the metal has quadrupled, from 80 cents a pound in 2003 to around $3.24.
The Article (http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/business-3/1187860624160480.xml&coll=2)
Because I have a feeling it'll be cycled off cleveland.com soon:
Notice your Internet connection acting up earlier this week?
You weren't alone.
Cleveland vandals - possibly copper thieves - probably caused delays for millions of Internet users around the world on Sunday night and much of Monday.
Near Euclid Avenue and East 65th Street, someone apparently used a chain saw Sunday afternoon to cut through a high-capacity Internet trunk line, part of the backbone of the Internet. Although the thieves may have been seeking copper, there is no copper in fiber-optic cable.
When workers went to fix the underground cables, they found that the coil of replacement cable they brought from a warehouse had been damaged by a gunshot, making it unusable.
The setback meant things weren't brought back up to speed until Monday afternoon.
The damaged trunk line is owned by Adesta LLC of Nebraska but is leased by several Internet wholesalers, including Cogent Communications, Level 3 and TeliaSonera.
Those companies control access to the Internet backbone, which is made up of ultra-high-bandwidth connections among major cities around the world, and sell it to local service providers such as Time Warner Cable and AT&T.
Cleveland is one of the country's biggest Internet hubs, with trunk lines - bundles of fiber-optic cables - running from here to Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C., said Scot Rourke, president and chief executive of Cleveland's broadband initiative, OneCommunity.
The sabotaged trunk line didn't entirely cut people off from the Internet, said Dave Shaeffer, chief executive of Cogent. Instead, Internet traffic was rerouted until the problem was fixed.
That meant slower data transfer times for millions of people who were trying to access information that normally would come through Cleveland.
"The positive thing is that everything worked," Shaeffer said. "Everything kept running."
Adesta reported the incident to Cleveland police Monday morning.
"It appears as though individuals were attempting to steal copper wire," the company said in a written statement.
Another unsuccessful copper theft was attempted Tuesday, when a Massillon man was electrocuted while trying to steal wire from a power substation.
Thieves in Ohio and across the nation are increasingly turning to the highest-quality sources of copper, often found on utility poles and electrical boxes, and then selling the wiring to scrap dealers.
Copper thefts have increased across the nation as the salvage price for the metal has quadrupled, from 80 cents a pound in 2003 to around $3.24.