On Friday, 5 August 2016 23:21:21 UTC+1, Pet @ www.gymratz.co.uk ;¬) wrote:
On 05/08/2016 19:42, Phil L wrote:

If I were a burglar the first thing I'd do would be chop the BT wire
to stop alarm and internet connection before doing anything....

So you plan on putting metal over the 4in bit and leaving plastic over the
rest?

Yes indeed.

Any burglar intent on cutting these wires would not be put off by anything
in this scenario and would cut through the entire ducting with bolt cutters.

But the ducting that comes from the ground is 54mm and very robust as
would be expected for underground ducting. Only way through would be a
saw and generally speaking that's not something the opportunist thief
would be carrying, it would need to be a huge set of bolt cutters to
have jaws that opened that far.

A small pair of wirecutters on the other hand takes up no space and
couldn't be considered as "equipped" and a precautionary quick snip
would take less than a second or 2.

Not that this happens of course, except in films, and even then, only
providing you've got art / jewels etc in the region of half a million on the
premises. Your average smack rat looking for his next £20 is going to get
in, pick up the first thing he sees which will buy him a bag and he'll be
away on his toes, probably something electronic and small, they're not gonna
**** about with a fifty inch plasma, or telephone wires.

But if there is an obviously active bell box on the wall then there's a
very strong chance it has an auto dialler via POTS and if the telephone
wire is easy to see and exposed you'd be stupid not to snip it.

The original wire didn't emerge until deep inside the garage. Sadly the
builders changed that when accidentally ripping out other mains services
with the mini digger when digging the foundations.

Battery powered angle grinders very popular with burglars apparently.