Is the cabling copper or fiber optic?
In the 1990s, telecommunications wiring was made mostly of copper for the transmission of channels of pay television companies and for telephone calls, but now this material has given way to fiber optics due to to the need for a better quality of connectivity, derived from the pandemic, explains Ernesto Piedras, director of the consultancy The Ciu.
“For example, with copper you could pass 50 voice calls and with fiber you can transmit up to a million calls. During the transition from copper to fiber, between the 1990s and 2000s, companies donated the copper they managed to extract from their cables to artisans in Santa Clara del Cobre, Michoacán, whose community is famous for creating handicrafts by smelting copper. copper”, explained Piedras.
But currently, copper technology still represents just over 20% of operator networks, which is gradually decreasing in urban areas, revealed Noé Garza, CTO of Neutral Networks, in an email sent to Expansion.
Telmex is the operator that still has a large part of copper cables, especially in remote areas. This situation, says Israel Quiñones, spokesperson for the telephone union of the Mexican Republic, has led the company to file more cases of vandalism in the country, such as the one that occurred last Monday when the company reported outages in its network in Jalisco and Michoacán. thinking that the fiber was copper and when they realized they left the cables cut, knocking down the network of three complete states.
The spokesperson revealed to Expansion that Telmex promised the Telephone Operators Union to invest more in its network to replace copper with fiber optics, in order to mitigate the theft and cutting of cables and affectations for users. Most of the vandalized wiring ends up in the black market for copper smelters.
“The Mexico City Prosecutor’s Office, through its head and the head of the Citizen Security Secretariat, Omar García Harfuch, has said that much of the copper stolen in Mexico City ends up going to the port of Lázaro Cárdenas, in Michoacán. , to later be exported to China”, says Quiñones.
What is stolen copper wire used for?
Noé Garza specified that one of the main reasons for the theft of copper cables is that, in addition to being melted down, they can be used to manufacture power cables, valves, pipes and faucets, among others.
“Its price has been increasing and can reach 150 or 200 pesos per kilo. Due to the foregoing, the theft of this type of cable has increased”, points out the director of Neutral Networks. “In the case of fiber optics, there is no commercial value of the material itself, however, they confuse it with copper cables and cause damage and impact to services,” he adds.
For Piedras, another explanation for cable vandalism comes from sabotage between companies, because workers cut their competitors’ cables to create an environment of unfair competition.
“There is a very unfair practice in the market that is to cut the cables. It has happened, and it has even been denounced, that the cars and technicians of telecommunications companies cut the broadband connection of a competitor, and the problem is for the user who remains disconnected for a while ”, he says.
repairing the damage
Repairing a cut fiber optic cable is like open heart surgery. This material is fragile and thin, and when opening or cutting a fiber cable, hundreds of threads appear -similar to the thickness of a hair-, which makes gluing complex.
“There are some special devices that attach fiber optics to you, but they are very expensive, specialized, and it takes time to repair the damage,” says Piedras.
For Garza, an average fiber cut repair can take 4 to 6 hours, taking into account that the area of the damage has already been identified, special machinery is available, poles are installed, and permits from different government agencies.