Halton Regional Police are investigating vandalism to Cogeco's fibre optic cables that left some local residents without service this week.
Cogeco says following the outage on Thursday morning, services were back up and running by the late afternoon, but the incident resulted in $8,000 in costs to repair the cut cables.
The company says they are now working with the Halton Regional Police Service since the incident involves not only property damage, but is also a public safety issue as home phone services were affected, according to spokesperson Kristen Curry.
"Unfortunately, incidents like this are becoming more common across the telecommunications industry in Canada," said Curry. "While we can’t speculate on the specific motives, these acts often involve attempts to steal copper for scrap metal."
Curry says Cogeco does not use copper in its fibre optic cables, meaning cut wires are usually left behind as fibre optic cables have no resale value.
Curry says the $8,000 will cover the splicing process to rejoin the cut fibre optic cables, materials, and labour.
Anyone with information can contact police at 905-825-4777 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or haltoncrimestoppers.ca.
