U.K. internet provider’s bailout cancelled because rats chewed through its fiber optic cables — biodegradable cable jackets use soy- or corn-based materials, attracting hungry rats
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/u-k-broadband-provider-bailout-scuppered-because-rats-chewed-through-its-cables-companys-fiber-network-reportedly-damaged-by-rodents-will-require-an-expensive-fix-to-get-it-up-and-running-again
Posted by 457655676
19 Comments
Some car manufacturers also use cheap wires with animal fats in the cable jackets. Attracts animals such as foxes, cost us £100s.
Should be illegal, or they should have to disclose it in their product specification.
Good job network stuff is not critical infrastructure. Luxury, innit.
Now let’s spend tens of billions bombing Iran. Much better use of our taxes.
Makes sense, rats and foxes love the stuff. Im always replacing cables due to pest damage
Because you want the protection on your network infrastructure to be biodegradable so the environment it’s protecting the cables from actually destroys it.
[deleted]
Biodegradable cable jackets? There’s no way that’s a real thing that a human with a brain thought of, that other humans with brains then saw that and thought “great idea”. There’s just no way.
I know a few modern Land Rovers that have had recurring issues with mice and wires. I wonder if this is the problem.
| The firm is currently owned by FitzWalter Capital, a private-equity firm that specializes in investing in distressed companies, where they’re either turned around or cut to pieces and sold for profit.
Oh well, guess they lost that bet. On to the next victim they can asset strip.
That headline is absolute chaos. What the fuck happened to writing quality.
Hungry rats most certainly eat non-biodegradable cables, too.
Many 2010-2015 Jaguar owners also know this feeling…
In my partners home town in Austria, the pine martens get into cars and eat the electric and brake cables.
How moronic to make a fiber optic network out of biodegradable materials when these cables could easily last 100 years+ of telecommunications
Wait, I may be ignorant but why did they use food as materials lmao?!
You can smell that yourself. If you’re really hungry it almost will make you want to gnaw on it!
They are not biodegradable plastic skins – they would just degrade – brainless reporter. Variety of plastics used for cable coverings. Soy based plasticiser is used in PVC to comply with REACH regulations but it does not make the PVC biodegradable.
EVA with smoke and fire suppression additives, polypropylene, are common. The plastic can be specified to be rodent resistant. This is a story of fact explained with fiction …… too much of this in the media.
let me guess, they wanted the save the environment?
Life imitating art. Any Ren fans following his new Vincent anthology?
IYKYK
Yes, let’s make a product designed to protect cables from the biological environment out of a material that’s biodegradable.
Proper big brain thinking here. Like paper straws – a product that’s designed to carry liquid made out of a material that dissolves in liquid.