Andy Millar:
I suspect a modern law (criminal or case law) would be more specifically about defrauding the provider.
The problem with this is that fraud is generally regarded as a more severe offence than theft. Therefore refusing to pay a £2000 phone bill could perversely end up as a more severe offence than stealing the tranceiver unit from a base station worth ten times as much - plus all the inconvenience to users in the area.
I can vaguely remember reading something about a person who installed a 'black box' in their landline phone back in the era of Strowger telephone exchanges that resulted in callers having free calls (although outgoing calls were still charged unless the phone at the other end was also fitted with a 'black box') and how Post Office Telephones was considering charging him with fraud as it was impossible to charge him or the callers (who should have paid the bill but didn't) with theft. Because calls were not logged it was impossible to determine the amount of lost revenue.
Andy Millar:
I suspect a modern law (criminal or case law) would be more specifically about defrauding the provider.
The problem with this is that fraud is generally regarded as a more severe offence than theft. Therefore refusing to pay a £2000 phone bill could perversely end up as a more severe offence than stealing the tranceiver unit from a base station worth ten times as much - plus all the inconvenience to users in the area.
I can vaguely remember reading something about a person who installed a 'black box' in their landline phone back in the era of Strowger telephone exchanges that resulted in callers having free calls (although outgoing calls were still charged unless the phone at the other end was also fitted with a 'black box') and how Post Office Telephones was considering charging him with fraud as it was impossible to charge him or the callers (who should have paid the bill but didn't) with theft. Because calls were not logged it was impossible to determine the amount of lost revenue.
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