Suspected copper thieves have left 20,000 customers without Internet in Georgetown, Texas, this week.

Instead of trying to dig up copper cable, which can be profitable, the thieves damaged fiber optic cables belonging to fiber Internet provider Optimum.

As reported by News 4 San Antonio, the incident took place near I-35 and Northwest Boulevard in the early morning hours of Monday (July 13).

Optimum sent its repair crews out to work on restoring the network. The current status of the outage is not known, though reports suggest a preliminary investigation estimates the damage tops $100,000.

Restoring these fiber cables can take time, given that it's an intricate process to splice the fibers.

"Our teams responded immediately and are currently working to restore service after our network was deliberately damaged by criminal activity. We appreciate our customers' patience and urge the community to remain vigilant and report any suspicious activity to local authorities," said Optimum in a statement earlier this week.

The incident also impacted T-Mobile, News 4 reported.

It's just the latest in a number of attacks against telecoms infrastructure, where criminals attempt to dig up and steal copper to sell. The issue is a global one, but also very prominent in the US in recent months.

AT&T has been vocal in its ongoing battle against copper theft in the past year, with the telco suffering thousands of incidents, including one incident in October where one of its copper vaults was broken into.

As noted, the problem is a global one. Earlier this week, it was reported in India that an MTNL employee was arrested over alleged links to a criminal gang that had stolen copper infrastructure across Mumbai.