Between Orange and the inhabitants of the Ardèche, the current no longer passes.
While a flash parliamentary mission dedicated to telephony in rural areas is underway, at the initiative of the member for Drôme Célia de Lavergne, 269 elected officials from the Ardèche region have signed a petition in order to hold Orange to account and force the operator to fulfill its universal service obligations.
"This mission must assess the shortcomings because Orange is no longer concerned with its obligations," denounces MP Hervé Saulignac.
However, as part of the universal service, anyone who wishes has the right to request the installation of a telephone line and to connect to the Orange network.
But for that to happen, the aging copper network must be operational.
"It's a fight that I have been waging for nearly ten years, with relatively few results," concedes the deputy.
I observe the slow degradation of the copper network which is amplifying and accelerating.
"
"Every day I receive calls for help"
So the elected officials of the department decided to make common cause.
Their platform sounds like an SOS.
“Every day, I receive letters, underlines Hervé Saulignac, calls for help like:
My mother is 90 years old, she has a remote monitoring and it has been four months since she has had a phone.
We have no news.
It is terrible for rural areas.
There is a very strong feeling of abandonment.
"
Because, with the health crisis, the isolation of people living in rural areas has increased.
Sometimes, entire hamlets find themselves deprived of a landline, town halls, fire stations, etc.
“Cumulated over a year, we have had up to five months of power cut,” testifies Alain Baraquie, an inhabitant of Saint-Julien-Labrousse who founded the Orange collective enraged and denounces the immobility of the tricolor operator.
“It's a real pain, because the laptop is going very badly here.
In our case, they came to fix it, but we have to see how.
Orange uses sub-contractors, no longer controls its copper network.
It's DIY.
And the breakdowns are increasing.
Because for Orange, believes the collective, the copper network, whose extinction is scheduled by 2030 in favor of fiber, is no longer a priority.
To see the extent of the damage, just take the winding roads of the Monts d'Ardèche regional natural park.
Poles uprooted, cables cut, technical incidents are legion.
“It's very simple, the last kilometers of lines, Orange has stopped maintaining them, deplores Alain Baraquie.
What we are asking for is the total repair of damaged networks so that all isolated people can once again have access to the telephone, which is a right.
"
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In Ardèche and Drôme, thousands of people would thus be deprived of a fixed telephone, according to Orange enraged which calls for "a diagnosis of dysfunctions, town by town".
Taken up against Orange, the collective implores the State and Arcep to put the operator in front of its responsibilities, at a time when the convention concerning the delegation of the universal service expired at the end of the year and is in progress renegotiation.
