New provincial laws curbing copper thefts from telcos, companies say

The number of copper thefts from telecom providers has tumbled in British Columbia due to a new provincial law regulating the metal recycling industry, Telus Corp. said. In a Sept. 14 document filed with the CRTC, Telus said it experienced 380 “separate cable theft events” in 2011, which cost the company a combined $19 million. It said it was hit by more than 200 other incidents in the first six months of 2012 and that the company was “one of the biggest victims of metal theft” in the province. “TELUS has observed that cable theft is on the rise,” the company said in a CRTC application for exemptions from “competitor quality of service” fees the company incurred in May and June due to three copper theft incidents in British Columbia. “Telecommunications copper cables are especially prone to theft given that it is widely available and often strung on aerial or burial plant that is difficult, and often impossible, to keep secure.” Like many telcos, wireless carriers and broadcast distributors, Telus has an array of copper cables to carry signals across its networks and into individual homes. In a phone interview, Telus spokesman Shawn Hall said the company identified copper theft as an emerging problem in 2005 when the price of copper reached about $3.50 per pound. Since then, the company has been struck by rising thefts in the B.C. lower mainland, which Hall said “peaked” in the first half of this year. According to the mining investment site InfoMine and the International Cablemakers Federation, the global price of copper more than doubled between 2005 and 2006, reaching close to $4 per pound. Since then the price has fluctuated between about $1.50 and $4.50 per pound. On Monday, copper was trading at $3.68 per pound. In late July, the B.C. provincial government enacted a bill seeking to eliminate the market for stolen metals by requiring scrap metal dealers to obtain the name, address, phone number, date of birth and vehicle description of any person attempting to sell used metals. The new law also requires scrap metal dealers to send daily police reports of the metals they purchase, which police can compare to reported metal thefts. Hall said the new law has had a dramatic impact on the company’s copper theft problem in the two months since it has been in force. He said the company was hit by a single incident of copper theft in August after experiencing an average of more than 40 incidents per month during the first half of 2012. “We went from 59 thefts in June to 12 in July, to one in August, and have not yet had any in September,” he told The Wire Report in mid-September. “It’s too early to declare victory, but it appears to us that the provincial legislation … is having an effect.” Mark Duggan, a spokesman for BCE Inc. subsidiary Bell Aliant, said the number of copper thefts have fallen this year across the company's Atlantic Canada, Quebec and Ontario service territories. “In 2011, we had 81 incidents of copper theft, and that would include theft of grounding wires, theft of installed facilities … but also theft of inventory,” Duggan said. “I don’t have the stats on this year, but what I’ve been told is that we’re actually down significantly in terms of copper theft. We’ve seen little or no theft of storage copper inventory, and only occasional theft of installed copper.” A new provincial law that will regulate the sale of scrap metal in Nova Scotia is not yet in force, but Duggan said it should help to curb copper thefts in that province. In other areas, he said, scrap metal dealers are clawing back the market for stolen metal by refusing to purchase used telecom wires. “There seems to be a downward trend of what people are buying in terms of used copper, which is helping us on our end,” Duggan said. Bell Aliant's greatest concern about copper theft is the potential impact on paying subscribers, he said, who can lose service when thieves target installed cable. Customers can be left without essential 911 calling services, he said. In Telus' application to the CRTC, the company said a May 7 theft of five of its cables in Delta, B.C., caused 2,800 customers to lose service. Two other thefts in mid-June combined to knock out services for another 300 Telus subscribers in Burnaby and Surrey, B.C., the company said. All three thefts resulted in longer-than-usual repair efforts while subscribers and other telcos that lease access to Telus’ network were without service for several hours. “We had service restored as quickly as we possibly could in those cases, but they were big jobs,” Hall said. Hall said copper theft is still a problem “to some extent” in Alberta and that the province is considering a law that is similar to those in B.C. and Nova Scotia. In the Alberta legislature, provincial Bill 201, formally called the Scrap Metal Dealers and Recyclers Identification Act, is one of three bills tabled since a provincial election in April. If passed, Hall said, it could have the same impact as the new B.C. laws. “We’re really optimistic that the provincial legislation is proving tough and effective,” he said. “We’re optimistic with where we’re at right now.” nkyonka@thewirereport.ca

New provincial laws curbing copper thefts from telcos, companies say

News | September 24, 2012

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New provincial laws curbing copper thefts from telcos, companies say

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