The colossal project is planned to last until 2032. According to the plan announced in 2022, Orange has started to dismantle the million kilometers of copper cables through which telephone calls have passed for more than half a century and then Internet connections via ADSL. Aging and already largely replaced by optical fiber (this covered 90% of premises in France at the end of the third quarter of 2024), the historic network of the former France Télécom will cease to operate in 2030.
Half of the main arteries, the largest cables, have already been removed from their buried sheaths but we must now tackle the local services which brought telephones to 44 million French homes. “Over the next six years, we will lay as many copper cables as in the last fifteen years, with a peak in 2028 and 2029”explains Bénédicte Javelot, director of strategic projects and development at Orange France. The recovered cables will be recycled and recovered, allowing the operator to finance the cost of the project and, probably, to make a profit.
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