After an outage on Thursday morning, Cogeco says services were back up and running by the late afternoon, but the incident resulted in $8,000 in repair costs following vandalism.
Read more: Cogeco services disrupted in Oakville and surrounding areas due to vandalism
The company says they are now working with the Halton Regional Police Service (HRPS) since the incident involves not only property damage but also a public safety issue, as home phone services were affected, according to spokesperson Kristen Curry.
"Unfortunately, incidents like this are becoming more common across the telecommunications industry in Canada," said Curry. "While we can’t speculate on the specific motives, these acts often involve attempts to steal copper for scrap metal."
Curry says Cogeco does not use copper in their fibre optic cables, meaning cut wires are usually left behind as fibre optic cables have no resale value.
Curry says the $8,000 will cover the splicing process to rejoin the cut fibre optic cables, materials, and labour.
Anyone with information can contact police at 905-825-4777 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or haltoncrimestoppers.ca.