New steps towards the end of ADSL amid community concerns for fiber

A nudge and the old ADSL cable falls from the cemented pole to meander along the side of the road. Perched in his basket, the technician has just cut more than 50 years of telecom history in France. This same type of copper cable was also used for landline telephony since the postwar boom. At the same time, with this network dismantling experiment, in Provin (Nord) these days after Lévis-Saint-Nom (Yvelines) in 2021, the sector has projected itself into its post-2030 future. When fiber will have completely replaced ADSL…

The operation will be repeated over a large part of the town before the end of June. “We are a 100% fiber city”, welcomes Kwami Agbegna, the mayor of Provin. The condition was thus met for turn off the copper network last March and to start a dismantling by Orange of obsolete equipment. By 2030, the 36,000 French municipalities will see the incumbent operator turn off its copper network and ADSL in order to withdraw its facilities some time later. With substantial savings at stake for Orange.