Vandals responsible for Telus outage across northwest B.C., company says

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Thousands of people in northwest B.C. were unable to communicate digitally or do business on Monday after thieves attempted to steal copper cables crucial to Telus operations in the region.

The outage started at roughly 3 a.m. Monday and affected a huge swath of the province from Burns Lake, just west of Prince George, all the way to Terrace, Prince Rupert and Haida Gwaii.

In an email, a spokesperson said those responsible were trying to steal the cables in the area of Sheraton, B.C., about 20 kilometres east of Burns Lake.

In the process, the vandals cut through fibre lines, leading to the failure of services including internet, cellphone text and calls, home phones and 911 landlines.

The outage lasted much of the day Monday, with a spokesperson confirming that service had been fully restored just after 6 p.m. PT.

“We thank our customers for their patience, and our crews for their quick work repairing the extensive damage caused by the thieves, which restored critical services to [northern] B.C. communities,” a spokesperson wrote.

The company turned to another carrier for emergency cellphone service so customers could continue to make calls — but data, internet and landline services were unavailable, and texting was intermittent.

Few other providers operate in the region, so many people were unable to go about their day as usual, including at businesses that relied on internet for point-of-sale operations.

In Prince Rupert, a large cruise ship was docked Monday — but people without cash were unable to buy goods from some local restaurants and vendors, causing frustration.

Burns Lake RCMP said they received a report of cut lines just before 9:30 a.m. PT and are investigating.

Emergency services operating on backup networks

In a statement, Northern Health said the outage impacted 21 of its sites, but that all its acute care and major health facilities maintain Starlink satellite internet services as a backup.

It said the inbound and outbound calling to Northern Health facilities were not impacted, except in Burns Lake, where calls were temporarily redirected to Prince George to ensure they are answered.

B.C. Emergency Health Services said in a statement paramedics were still able to respond to calls and have access to cellular and satellite phones to communicate.

CBC News reached out to emergency service providers who use apps or a texting service to issue alerts for emergencies, such as earthquakes and tsunamis, to determine how they dealt with the outage.

Copper theft an ongoing issue

The outage is the latest instance of major problems caused by copper theft.

The Canadian Telecommunications Association says instances of such thefts has grown exponentially, leading to widespread outages such as the one being experienced in northwest B.C.

B.C. Hydro has also identified the growing concern, with more than 20 issues of copper theft impacting their operations over the last two years.