Here's a story of what happened around my place recently, and a short video.
On Tuesday September 24th at around 1 PM I got a message on my phone from Uptime Kuma telling me that my home Internet was down. I was in my office at the time and went to work confirming the report. What I found was that my Internet connection was mostly down, but a small trickle of data was still getting through. I later learned that the T-Mobile cell site closest to my house was down, and since that tower supplies 5G Home Internet to my house I no longer had a strong signal. However, my T-Mobile gateway box was able to connect to a distant tower which gave me a trickle of Internet data.
Oh well, stuff happens and I ignored it. T-Mobile has given me good speeds for a good price and has been dependable, but networks can go down for a number of reasons that are beyond the provider's control. When I got home I noticed a bucket truck and a couple other vehicles from the phone company on the street. My Internet was still down and it looked like it was going to be a boring night until I realized that I had a bunch of unwatched videos in Emby. So my wife and I watched Road House 2024 and a few sitcoms.
So around noon the next day I got an email alert from one of my cameras. It detected something in my driveway, but there was no picture attached. This was likely due to the extremely slow Internet access at my home. Not being able to monitor my cameras and getting an alert with no image was too much for me so I drove home to see what was happening.
I arrived to find a telephone company truck in my driveway and another one on the side of the street. A couple of guys approached me. One of them was speaking quickly and seemed a bit excited. He asked for the address of the camera that I live stream. He then added that a local woman told him about the webcam. I stayed quiet and let the guy talk. I was a bit confused about what was going on so I decided to let him talk himself out before replying. The guy went on to explain that someone had cut their optical fiber on the street in front of my house while stealing copper phone lines that were no longer in use, and he was looking for video evidence. Apparently the cut fiber had caused a widespread outage, knocking out many home and business customers including the local T-Mobile cell tower. I explained that I did not have a live stream but I did have recordings that I would look through and if I found anything of interest that I would send it to him. He also mentioned that a crew was out the previous day to splice the fiber but it was still not working. He was there to look for a secondary cut and said that a more senior splicing crew was on their way. That crew worked late into the night and my home Internet came alive again.
Here's an email that I sent to the telephone guy.
"Jeff,
I looked at my recordings last night and I found a suspicious vehicle that was around during the time that the fiber was cut. A U-Haul truck arrived around 12:31, drove west over the pedestrian bridge and then headed east toward the cul-de-sac. It left the area around 2:34 so it was around during the time the fiber was cut. I did not see a bucket truck or any other suspicious vehicles the whole day.
There was a woman walking on the trail that stopped to take a picture of the truck. I have seen the woman many times before so she either lives nearby or perhaps she works for a local business. She may have seen what the guys were doing when she walked west past the cul-de-sac, and she might have even taken a picture.
Here's the video.
Rob"
On October 3rd I got an email from the phone guy that read.
"Good day Rob,
Just wanted to let you know those people in the U Haul were arrested.
Small fish in what looks to be a large operation that has been taking place in many areas.
Thanks again for the footage.
Cheers,"
Then when I got home that day there was a card on my front door from a Sheriff asking me to call him. My wife called and the cop said that he had heard about my video but he was unable to get a copy from the phone company so he came directly to the source. He also said that the two guys in the truck that were arrested were previously in a Tacoma jail for the same thing. Apparently they were part of an organized group that travels around stealing copper wire.
From September 24th through today October 4th there has been multiple trucks on the street in front of my house, as well as the occasional police car. The trucks have been branded CenturyLink as well as their new name Lumen, and some fiber contractor trucks from North Sky Communications. I guess the thieves did a lot of damage that's taking a lot of man hours to repair.
On Tuesday September 24th at around 1 PM I got a message on my phone from Uptime Kuma telling me that my home Internet was down. I was in my office at the time and went to work confirming the report. What I found was that my Internet connection was mostly down, but a small trickle of data was still getting through. I later learned that the T-Mobile cell site closest to my house was down, and since that tower supplies 5G Home Internet to my house I no longer had a strong signal. However, my T-Mobile gateway box was able to connect to a distant tower which gave me a trickle of Internet data.
Oh well, stuff happens and I ignored it. T-Mobile has given me good speeds for a good price and has been dependable, but networks can go down for a number of reasons that are beyond the provider's control. When I got home I noticed a bucket truck and a couple other vehicles from the phone company on the street. My Internet was still down and it looked like it was going to be a boring night until I realized that I had a bunch of unwatched videos in Emby. So my wife and I watched Road House 2024 and a few sitcoms.
So around noon the next day I got an email alert from one of my cameras. It detected something in my driveway, but there was no picture attached. This was likely due to the extremely slow Internet access at my home. Not being able to monitor my cameras and getting an alert with no image was too much for me so I drove home to see what was happening.
I arrived to find a telephone company truck in my driveway and another one on the side of the street. A couple of guys approached me. One of them was speaking quickly and seemed a bit excited. He asked for the address of the camera that I live stream. He then added that a local woman told him about the webcam. I stayed quiet and let the guy talk. I was a bit confused about what was going on so I decided to let him talk himself out before replying. The guy went on to explain that someone had cut their optical fiber on the street in front of my house while stealing copper phone lines that were no longer in use, and he was looking for video evidence. Apparently the cut fiber had caused a widespread outage, knocking out many home and business customers including the local T-Mobile cell tower. I explained that I did not have a live stream but I did have recordings that I would look through and if I found anything of interest that I would send it to him. He also mentioned that a crew was out the previous day to splice the fiber but it was still not working. He was there to look for a secondary cut and said that a more senior splicing crew was on their way. That crew worked late into the night and my home Internet came alive again.
Here's an email that I sent to the telephone guy.
"Jeff,
I looked at my recordings last night and I found a suspicious vehicle that was around during the time that the fiber was cut. A U-Haul truck arrived around 12:31, drove west over the pedestrian bridge and then headed east toward the cul-de-sac. It left the area around 2:34 so it was around during the time the fiber was cut. I did not see a bucket truck or any other suspicious vehicles the whole day.
There was a woman walking on the trail that stopped to take a picture of the truck. I have seen the woman many times before so she either lives nearby or perhaps she works for a local business. She may have seen what the guys were doing when she walked west past the cul-de-sac, and she might have even taken a picture.
Here's the video.
Rob"
On October 3rd I got an email from the phone guy that read.
"Good day Rob,
Just wanted to let you know those people in the U Haul were arrested.
Small fish in what looks to be a large operation that has been taking place in many areas.
Thanks again for the footage.
Cheers,"
Then when I got home that day there was a card on my front door from a Sheriff asking me to call him. My wife called and the cop said that he had heard about my video but he was unable to get a copy from the phone company so he came directly to the source. He also said that the two guys in the truck that were arrested were previously in a Tacoma jail for the same thing. Apparently they were part of an organized group that travels around stealing copper wire.
From September 24th through today October 4th there has been multiple trucks on the street in front of my house, as well as the occasional police car. The trucks have been branded CenturyLink as well as their new name Lumen, and some fiber contractor trucks from North Sky Communications. I guess the thieves did a lot of damage that's taking a lot of man hours to repair.
