Fibre cable theft in SA
Copper cable theft is a well-known problem in South Africa that has affected many home and business users. Given the extent of the disruption in services such theft may cause, it was troubling to hear reports from Cell C that thieves had begun targeting fibre cable.
In the past, theft of fibre cable was usually attributed to mistaken identity – thieves thought they were digging up copper and got fibre instead.
Speaking at both the launch of Cell C’s 42 Mbps services in PE and somewhat later to Classic FM, Cell C CEO Lars Reichelt said that he “recently heard” that among other things, fibre is being stolen as it can be used to make beads. It is understood that the Kevlar used in fibre optic cables is what makes it attractive for thieves.
However, Ericsson sub-Saharan Africa, one of the companies involved in rolling out the Johannesburg Broadband Network Project, said that most instances of fibre theft they’ve seen is due to the cables being mistaken for copper.
Dark Fibre Africa’s (DFA) Jacque van Loggerenberg painted a similar picture, explaining that they’ve seen very few instances of fibre being specifically targeted. DFA has had incidents where people hunting copper dig open ducting containing fibre optic cables and burn through it, van Loggerenberg said.
Van Loggerenberg added that DFA’s techniques for laying fibre also make it less susceptible to theft. “Access to the network is incredibly difficult,” van Loggerenberg said.
They use a method of trenching called “in-road trenching” where they cut a trench in the road itself and seal it up with backfill concrete. Manholes are secured with an electronic key controlled by DFA’s national operations centre (NOC) which works on cellular networks.
According to van Loggerenberg, DFA recorded three instances of targeted fibre theft in 2008. One of the instances involved a route being dug up; thieves broke open manholes in the other two incidents and stole cable slack. Slack cable refers to a length of cable left inside of manholes to be provisioned at a later stage. This cable slack is still connected to the fibre network and a break there would cause a connectivity outage, explained van Loggerenberg.
The thieves weren’t able to break open the covers but dug next to the manholes to access the slack, van Loggerenberg said.
Based on the feedback from DFA and Ericsson it seems as though thieves aren’t that interested in fibre in South Africa (and long may it remain so).
Should optical fibre become an attractive target, one can only hope that the effort needed to steal the cable outweighs the potential benefits thieves may derive from crippling critical infrastructure.
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