Vandals leave 4000 Perth homes without internet for weeks

Vandals have destroyed a large exchange cable in the Perth suburb of Gosnells
Almost 4,000 homes have been left without a landline and access to the internet
This is the seventh similar incident in the metro area in recent weeks, say police

By Yael Brender For Daily Mail Australia

Published: 16:58 BST, 30 September 2017 | Updated: 17:19 BST, 30 September 2017

Vandals have destroyed a Gosnells exchange cable in Perth that serviced 4,000 homes including a residential reitrement area

Vandals have destroyed a Gosnells exchange cable in Perth that serviced 4,000 homes including a residential reitrement area

Almost 4,000 homes have been plunged back into the dark ages after vandals destroyed a Gosnells exchange cable that delivered home phone lines and ADSL internet to south east Perth.

Although repairs have already begun outage, the damage is ‘extensive’ and the outage could last as long as two weeks as technicians must reconnect thousands of individual wires.

Police are investigating the Thursday night incident, which is the third successive act of vandalism specifically targeting Telstra equipment – cables in Mullaloo and Cannington were also damaged in recent months.

‘I told [Telstra] off,’ said 86-year-old Gosnells resident Eileen Brown. ‘I told them that I had had a phone in my house since 1930, and that this wasn’t good enough.’

Another added that is was a ‘disgrace’ considering that residents of retirement villages especially need their phones for emergencies.

Telstra have informed customers that they will be prioritising restoring service to elderly and registered medical assist customers.

Channel 7 reported that this was the seventh similar incident in recent weeks, as extra technicians work ‘around the clock’ to restore services.

Police are investigating the act of vandalism that has left 4,000 Perth homes without internet

Police are investigating the act of vandalism that has left 4,000 Perth homes without internet

The outage could last two weeks as technicians must reconnect thousands of individual wires

The outage could last two weeks as technicians must reconnect thousands of individual wires

‘We wish to apologise to our customers for the disruption to services, which is the result of vandals causing malicious damaging to a main cable in the Gosnells area,’ Telstra area general manager Boyd Brown said in a statement.

‘We have reported the matter to police and ask that anyone who has information related to this incident to please come forward.

‘We are already working to make the necessary repairs as quickly as possible but such is the extent of the damage it may take some time for the work to be completed.’