It is reported by Recombu that broadband providers like Plusnet and TalkTalk are willing to join the trial of RABIT which is ready to be conducted by BT Openreach. BT has designed its RABIT (the Rapid Assessment BT Incident Tracker) to prevent cable theft. The system is so devised that the moment cable theft occurs, police would be alerted.

BT had a bitter experience two months back when it’s under water cable was cut and removed by some thieves thinking that it was copper. The increase in the price of copper might have tempted the thieves to steal cable but in fact it was fibre. However thousands of residents in that locality were left with out any connections, even police and ambulance could not be contacted. The new device RABIT is so designed that when ever the theft occurs, it will help BT to identify the place of occurrence so that the company could do what is needed to restore telecoms services.

BT has currently announced its plans to make available this diagnostic tool to rival providers also for a trial period of three months. Though the measure is good for the safety of their cables and both providers are interested in the project, they did not say anything about the pilot. Both these operators are delivering broadband service through BT Openreach’s wholesale network.

The trial is expected to be started on the 21st July and would be continued till 5th of October .As per Recombu no deadline is set for applications which means that any provider can join the project anytime.