justDIY said:
i've heard about that, underground cable theft ... people just take a chainsaw to those massive thick cables and haul 'em away
hard to believe there is so much value in recycled copper?!
Yeah, but you have to burn off the insulation to get the big bucks. Usually the neighbors don't like that. And recycling is meant to save the enviroment...
Anyway, a telecom company would be more like Cable TV, which is sort of a rip off of itself, so what's the difference, somebody is going to get it bending over anyway.
Seriously, don't think there is a simple bullet proof solution, once a "customer" figures out there is a tattle-tell monitor, they would just bypass it, remove it, or vandalize it. If you don't see who did the dirty work, you could only fix the problem and move on. What else are you going to do, tell the customers in the problem area to get a satelite dish, you don't want their $79/month any more?
Last year when my dog died, I dug a big hole near the edge of my property. Didn't even think about buried cables and such. I did find my sewer line though. Then again, never had cable TV, so what did I care....