• 
• 

 1 of 2

Gallery

Putting the squeeze on the broadband copper robbers

Posted on 15 Oct 2010 at 08:00

Inside the fight against the low-tech criminals that damage broadband Britain

When we think of tech crime, we tend to imagine hackers cooking up exploits to crack banking systems or spammers launching phishing attacks, but they are only half the story.

While these cybercrimes might capture the imagination of Hollywood script writers, there is a much lower-tech assault taking place on the nation's IT infrastructure that is more Lock, Stock than The Matrix.

Every night across Britain, old-fashioned robbers take to the streets, looking to plunder an increasingly valuable commodity – copper.

As the value of copper has increased, so has its attractiveness to thieves. The crooks strip the material from anywhere it's available – from plumbers' vans, railway line power cables, and perhaps most frustratingly for PC Pro readers, from telecommunications links.

“Police figures released in July 2010 estimate the overall cost of metal thefts (including disruption) to UK firms is about £770 million per year,” said Mark Lagram, a consultant with Heath Lambert Risk Management.

There's a direct correlation between the price of copper and the level of theft

“There have been reported sharp increases in such incidents in many regions of the UK, including the West Midlands, Slough, Norfolk to name but a few. Thefts are occurring at construction sites where there is known storage of non-ferrous metals, but also where they are in use.”

And the situation is expected to get worse as surging demand in Asia pushes metal prices up. “There's a direct correlation between the price of copper and the level of theft,” said Bernie Auguste, head of security for BT Openreach, which lays and maintains the company's telecoms infrastructure. “It's now at about £5,000 per tonne, but by 2014 that is expected to go up by 62%.”

Broadband burglary

While the costs might be eye watering, copper remains the major delivery method of broadband in Britain, and customers are left frustrated when services are disrupted after crooks pull cables from the ground, tear it from telegraph poles, or rip it from network boxes.

“For us the fundamental problem is the disruption of service it causes,” said Auguste. “Although some of the theft comes from building sites, a lot of it is stripped from live networks and that causes a lot of network disruption."