Rat Attack Causes Broadband Outage In Scotland 85
judgecorp writes "Virgin Media's broadband services in parts of Scotland have been taken down by rats biting through the fibre optic cables. It's unusual to have an operator attribute an outage to such a cause, but we would bet it has happened before, given the fibres are carried in underground ducts."
animal scent in the insulation (Score:4, Informative)
Fibre cables are pretty new for rats to be attracted to. They are a problem for some old cables because animal fat was used in the insulation. They smell the animal fat and chow down.
"Chew on anything" (Score:5, Informative)
Rats and other rodents will chew on anything soft enough to chew on.
Yes they will. I remember reading back in college about German armor divisions having lots of trouble on the eastern front due to rats and mice. In very cold conditions, the Wehrmacht would park their tanks in barns with lots of hay in an attempt to keep them from freezing up, and rodents would get into them and chew the wiring up. When I was younger, I had a couple of pet rats, and learned that they'll chew on pretty much anything. There's a hard, rock-like substance that you buy in pet stores for them, and they chew on it out of natural instinct to keep their teeth worn down. Rodent teeth never stop growing, so if they don't chew on something, their teeth will get too long and injure them.