Vandals damage fiber cables knocking out Comcast services across San Joaquin County, company says (2025)

STOCKTON, Calif. — A Thursday morning outage of some Comcast services in Stockton was caused by vandals who allegedly damaged fiber cables in San Joaquin County, officials with the telecommunications conglomerate said.

According to a statement from Comcast, Thursday's vandalism and subsequent outages were just the latest in a series of similar incidents over the last few weeks around San Joaquin County.

"Today’s incident is one of several occurrences that have happened over the past few weeks. Comcast technicians are currently on the site and have begun working immediately to restore services to our customers," the statement said. "We’re also collaborating with local authorities to determine the cause of these repeated incidents and to prevent further acts of vandalism from occurring."

A spokesperson for Comcast told ABC10 that internet, T.V. and phone services were impacted in Stockton, Manteca, Tracy and French Camp due to the vandalism.

It's unclear how many customers were impacted by the outages and for how long services were disrupted, but some Comcast customers reported services back online by noon Thursday. The fiber cables allegedly damaged by vandals were located in French Camp, just south of Stockton.

Officials would not disclose how the fiber cables were damaged to "avoid copycats."

Authorities in the Bay Area city of Fremont also investigated cases of fiber cable vandalism this week which knocked out Comcast services to some in the area on Tuesday.

Tuesday's incident of fiber cable vandalism in Fremont was the third occurrence in that city in recent weeks.