Vietnamese fishermen accidentally cut fiber optic cables

It seems that with the price of copper rising so high these days, Vietnam decided to allow fishermen to harvest old copper cabling from the ocean around the country. The copper cables are left over from the war, and are no longer used. So there really is no reason why they couldn't be harvested for their copper. The problem came in when the fishermen couldn't tell the difference between the old copper cable and newer fiber optic cable. 27 miles of fiber optic cable has been lost, which is going to cost the government of Vietnam about $5 million to replace. Meanwhile all communications in the country are running down a single fiber optic cable. Not a good thing when you are trying to increase the high tech industry in your country.

Via EnGadget: Vietnamese fishermen mistakenly swipe miles of fiber-optic wire