Who are Austin Geddings and Jillian Persons? North Carolina duo arrested after knocking out the internet in Connecticut

Connecticut police have charged Austin Geddings and Jillian Persons with knocking out the internet in the southern state on March 24, 2023. As per reports from Optimum cable workers, after more than 2,000 fiber optic cables were cut, over 40,000 homes and businesses were left without internet service.

According to officers, the arrest was made on Saturday, April 1, during a surveillance operation.

Austin Geddings (26) and Jillian Persons (30) are from Asheville, North Carolina. They were charged with larceny and criminal mischief, as well as interfering with police. Persons was also charged with giving a false statement to the police.

Both Austin Geddings and Jillian Persons, who hail from North Carolina, have been detained by the Norwalk police. Bail has been set at $200,000.

The internet outage caused by cable cutting was soon restored, according to Optimum’s website.

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Motive behind Austin Geddings and Jillian Persons' crime remains unknown

On March 24, patrol division officers responded to a report of damaged Optimum cable lines on Broad Street in Norwalk. Optimum workers informed officers that more than 2,000 fiber optic lines had been cut.

Norwalk police then identified the suspects and their vehicle. They also issued arrest warrants for Austin Geddings and Jillian Persons for knocking out the internet in the state.

However, there was no information or details released on how officers tied Austin Geddings and Persons to the crime.

Jillian Persons was spotted by the police while conducting surveillance in Bridgeport. She was arrested without incident. Meanwhile, Austin Geddings was arrested soon after in a wooded area near West Avenue in Stratford, as per CBS.

The arrested duo are scheduled to appear in court on April 11. Officers are yet to discover the motive behind the crime.

Back in 2015, a similar incident took place where fiber-optic cables were severed around the Bay Area.

A federal investigation was undertaken to identify the accused responsible for the crime. In the same year, in another incident in Walnut Creek, a suburb of Oakland, California, vandalism led to landline and wireless AT&T customers experiencing service outages. AT&T had even offered a $1,000 reward for anyone with information on who the cable-snipper was.

A federal report stated that internet disruption can even render ATM machines and credit card machines non-functional.

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Cutting cables cost dearly to companies and customers

Following the Connecticut internet outage that occurred on March 24, the cost of repairing the damage also surfaced. According to the North American Telecommunications Damage Prevention Council, the average cost to bury fiber optic cable in a rural area is $75,000 per mile. This proved that fixing a damaged telecom fiber does not come cheap.

In a 2019 DIRT Report, the alleged cost to repair a damaged telecom facility in that year was reported to be as much as $92,000. The report further stated that telecom companies paid a median price of $600 million in direct repair costs and $18 billion in indirect costs.

Fiber cuts are financially disastrous for telecom companies. They can disable internet or phone services, and rerouting services can be tedious and not always that seamless. Service outages caused by fiber cuts to fiber hubs and VIP lines also impact a high volume of customers.

According to security experts and networking engineers, if vandals cut any Internet Exchange Points (IXPs), where major networks converge, it can cause severe disruption. Since IXPs are often privately held, they are installed in buildings or manholes with limited security.