Broadband thievery

The Miami Herald reports “In a caper eerily similar to the the theft of $200,000 worth of AT&T Broadband equipment in 2000, high-tech thieves raided 26 outdoor amplifier sites in Cooper City, causing as many as 14,000 Comcast customers to lose cable service for up to two hours.”

”Numerous complaints” between 2 and 5 a.m. Aug. 11 brought technicians to Cooper City in emergency mode. Comcast technician Juan Vasquez, who examined five Rock Creek theft sites, said the thieves were intimately familiar with the equipment. ”Every wire that was severed was cut in a manner that would make it easy to replace. There were no wires damaged,” Vasquez told police. The amplifiers, which strengthen the signals that allow subscribers to receive telephone, television and Internet service on a single line, were valued at $2,500 each, according to Michael Tamas, Comcast Communications South Florida regional manager of security, Tamas said repair costs, including overtime for technicians and loss of service to customers, raised the price of replacing amplifiers to $3,000 each and cost Comcast $78,000.”
Once upon a time, disruption of our television signal was annoying, but not anything more than that. Now that we depend on our Internet connection for everything from business and banking to security monitoring, a loss of signal for even a couple of hours can be devastating.