Copper thieves cut internet, TV, and landline services in Oromocto, N.B., area
Bell Aliant says repeated incidents of copper theft are disrupting internet, television, and landline phone connections to New Brunswick customers around Oromocto and Lincoln.
The latest incident happened Tuesday around 8 a.m.
Bell Aliant (a subsidiary of Bell, which is the parent company of CTV), says about 850 customers are affected by the outage, adding it may take until 11 p.m. Tuesday for all services to be restored.
"We’ve been exposed to a rash of vandalism, particularly in the last four to six weeks, of thieves looking to steal copper from our outside plant network," says Dana Lohnes, Bell’s director of field operations in Atlantic Canada.
Lohnes says there’s been as many as 35 separate incidents in recent weeks.
"Each of those acts of vandalism results in multiple customers being taken out of service,” says Lohnes. "In some cases, up to a couple thousand customers at a time for each of the separate acts of vandalism.”
Impacted customers tell CTV News some services outages have lasted a day or longer.
The RCMP confirms its ongoing investigation of telecommunication outages from two days: Nov. 24 (in the Broad Road area), and Tuesday.
"We were also advised by the provider that a pole on Black Watch Avenue in Oromocto was damaged due to mischief,” says Cpl. Terry Densmore of the Oromocto RCMP. "Police attended that location today and confirmed that someone had cut and stolen the wires from this pole causing the disruption."
Lohnes says Bell Aliant has installed surveillance cameras and alarms around the area.
"We’ve had roving patrols where we’ve had our local management team, as well as some security companies literally driving the streets in some of these high targeted areas trying to catch people in the act,” says Lohnes. “We have also upped our surveillance in terms of the amounts of cameras that we’ve had installed."
"We have alarming on all our network. So when we lose certain elements of the network it alarms to a common alarm centre. We’ve had that alarm centre on high alert so when they see alarms in these particular regions, they call our roaming patrols who will then call the RCMP directly.”
Cpl. Densmore says anyone who witnessed suspicious activity around the Broad Road area of Oromocto on Nov. 24, or Black Watch Road area of Oromocto Nov. 29, should contact them.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Northern Ont. lawyer who abandoned clients in child protection cases disbarred
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
Bank of Canada officials split on when to start cutting interest rates
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Maple Leafs fall to Bruins in Game 3, trail series 2-1
Brad Marchand scored twice, including the winner in the third period, and added an assist as the Boston Bruins downed the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-2 to take a 2-1 lead in their first-round playoff series Wednesday
Cuban government apologizes to Montreal-area family after delivering wrong body
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
'It was instant karma': Viral video captures failed theft attempt in Nanaimo, B.C.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
What is changing about Canada's capital gains tax and how does it impact me?
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
New Indigenous loan guarantee program a 'really big deal,' Freeland says at Toronto conference
Canada's Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was among the 1,700 delegates attending the two-day First Nations Major Projects Coalition (FNMPC) conference that concluded Tuesday in Toronto.
'Life was not fair to him': Daughter of N.B. man exonerated of murder remembers him as a kind soul
The daughter of a New Brunswick man recently exonerated from murder, is remembering her father as somebody who, despite a wrongful conviction, never became bitter or angry.