Meet the slimeballs who are openly sabotaging Virgin Media Snails attacked a Virgin Media broadband cabinet in Shropshire, UK, resulting in sluggish broadband services. The escargot slid into a cabinet on Wednesday and were subsequently flambéd after being electrocuted by the battery. According to an incident report by the Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service, a call was received on …
Many years ago, I worked for the predecessor to TransCo (or whatever they are called these days).
Most common call out for the telemetry guys was a loss of signal caused by rabbits and/or squirrels nibbling into power cables which were armoured.
By their very nature, high-pressure grid offtakes and junctions are a *long* way from population centres.
<- nibble, nibble, BANG
^---- nibble nibble BANG
which begs the question - how are wabbitses/squirrels being able to nibble through armoured power cables? I mean the armour must be harder than their teeth?
Or is it just a case of the wabbit/squirrel nibbling patiently away at the same spot for weeks on end?
I assume you've never had a pet rabbit/hamster/gerbal/guinea pig/other rodent. I think you'd be surprised at the piercing ability of rodent teeth. It's not just about the hardness of the teeth but also the sharpness and the surface area combined to jaw muscle power ratio which is surprisingly high.
Armoured cables are in general intended to withstand strikes from tools and digging equipment, a spade driven by a human or a mechanical digger may be powerful but the power is spread over the whole surface of the digging implement.
Also I think in a lot of cases when builders damage armoured cable, it's not so much the initial impact that damages the cable but also the pulling and torsional stress as the digging implement tries to pull the cable out of the ground along with the surrounding earth. A squirrel on the other hand can't really apply much force to the cable as a whole.
Not to mention it has to be possible to cut the armour with something, otherwise how would you ever get the correct length of cable :)
Back in the days when Metronet were the PPP contractor for maintaining a large chunk of the London Underground, we suffered a major signal main failure at South Kensington.
On removing a cover from the transformer a very very frazzled and very very deceased mouse (of the four legged variety, not the unitesticular variety that then were attached to the PCs) was revealed.
I remember the incident well, being the bod that worked out the £679k it cost them in contractual penalties ...
I worked there briefly, and I stress briefly, as it was NTL when I started and VM in my last two months.
The internal 'culture' was as fake as you get as a customer. It was fortunately a while ago and it's been many brain cells killed since, but the forced jollity was particularly obscene considering they made loads of stage redundant and closed I think Swansea's support center down.
Obviously, nobody is fooled, but it was exactly the same, or worse, on the inside.
If you area is anything like mine (South of Gatwick) many of the Virgin roadside cabinets have their green metal doors hanging open/off for all to gather around and poke/prod the innards. My local school mummy-gathering point is in fact right by one of the said flasher-style cabs with plenty of human rodents (children) itching to infest the unusual cabinet of delights.
By virtue of moving house I am soon to become a customer of the once Branson-run conglomerate and fear for the inevitable shiteness that I am about to unleash myself unto. TTB FTTC has served me well so far but the female element behind this house-move has her choice firmly set. I may seek some 'backdoor action' and install a secondary service suitably disguised :p
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