A quiet crime is causing internet outages across Oakland

Copper theft, a persistent problem in the Bay Area that disrupted 911 service and closed a DMV office, is now knocking out internet service in Oakland, officials say.

Since the beginning of the year, thieves have been targeting copper cables used for telecommunications in the Oakland hills, particularly along a roughly 8-mile stretch of Skyline Boulevard from Evergreen Avenue to the northeast edge of Knowland Park, according to Oakland police. OPD did not detail exactly how many cases of copper theft have occurred in recent months, but said there have been several reports dating back to late January.

AT&T spokesperson Chris Collins confirmed to SFGATE that a Tuesday outage was caused by a theft of copper wire. The company also reported back-to-back outages on April 15 and 16, he added.

In all three cases, thieves cut several sections of fiber and copper cable at the corner of Skyline Boulevard and Keller Avenue, triggering an outage that lasted about five hours, he said. AT&T announced it would offer a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of those responsible for the copper theft.

A recent blog post from AT&T’s senior global security investigator, Rahdeese Alcutt, said organized copper theft is occurring “more frequently and on a much larger scale.” In 2025, AT&T reported more than 10,400 copper theft incidents nationwide, averaging 200 per week, Alcutt wrote.

Oakland Hills resident Lois Gaudet told SFGATE that AT&T outages are also a recurring problem in her neighborhood.

“The more wireless you are, the worse it was! Almost as bad as a power outage,” Gaudet said in a Nextdoor post. “I have solar with a battery to avoid this, now I have to reactivate my [internet] system to keep Internet and wifi.

Gaudet called the outages “very disruptive” because they prevent him from using his printers, televisions, doorbell cameras and thermostat, for example.

“Losing wifi was horrible. I lost my security cameras and many other essential household appliances,” she said.

The problem extends to Oakland beyond just AT&T customers. Damage to fiber optic lines also disrupted Xfinity service while destroying street lights and traffic signals throughout the city, KTVU-TV reported.

The outage affected customers in downtown Oakland on Monday, after fiber optic lines were “damaged by vandalism,” Julianne Campbell, a spokeswoman for Comcast, Xfinity’s parent company, told SFGATE.

Internet service was cut for at least 2,000 customers, KTVU-TV reported, including this SFGATE reporter. According to a text message from Xfinity, the outage lasted from approximately 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Copper theft has been a pressing problem in Oakland for years, with the precious metal worth $6.19 per pound Wednesday afternoon, the highest price since January. Beyond internet service disruptions, damage to copper wires caused the temporary closure of a DMV office near the Oakland Coliseum last year, and in 2024, thieves will tear down light poles around Lake Merritt, stripping them of copper.

Theft is a statewide problem, with thieves targeting some essential services like the Bay Area’s Caltrain, when a man was caught removing copper wire from the train tracks in South San Francisco. In San Jose, vandals stole $10,000 worth of copper wire from the Valley Transportation Authority station in 2024. And in Fresno, copper has been stolen in recent years from farms across the county.

State officials, such as Attorney General Rob Bonta, have said they are working to combat copper theft by strengthening controls and talking with authorities.