We are currently living the last hours of the ADSL network in France, or rather the last years. The copper wire will be put away in the closet of history after 150 years of use for the telephone. It will gradually be replaced by optical fiber and alternative technologies such as 4G or 5G.
Officially decided by Orange in 2022 and unveiled in its closure plan, its end is scheduled for 2030.
What are the consequences of this closure for the consumer? We give you an overview of what the end of the copper network will bring to France.
What is ADSL?
ADSL (English Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) or asymmetric digital link in the language of Molière is a communication technique that allows the use of a telephone line to transmit and receive digital data independently of analog telephony. It takes its name from the fact that the upward flow (upload) is less than the downlink rate (download): the flow rate is asymmetrical.
ADSL therefore relies on a dated infrastructure: the network of copper wires deployed in the 1970s for the telephone. Indeed, rather than embarking on a pharaonic project to deploy the Internet using a new technology, France Telecom was able to rely on the telephone network to launch high-speed Internet in 1999. ADSL offers the era of connections with a speed of up to 1 Mb/S, a revolution when modems until then spat out a poor 56 kilobytes per second.
In 2023, the copper network is still used by just over 9 million ADSL subscribers. It is in 2022 that the curves of use have crossed, the number of fiber users now being higher. The pandemic and teleworking have been there, but it is still a significant figure when its end of life is scheduled for a date as close as 2030.
What is the copper network?
The copper network project was first launched by the General Directorate of Telecommunications in the 1970s and continued by its heir, France Telecom. It was initially intended to carry the telephone everywhere in France. Then, it was used to deploy the internet, then cable television, alias DTT.
Several decades were needed to deploy this network, which represents more than a million meters of cables spread over the entire metropolitan territory. Until then a public administration managed by the State, France Telecom is gradually being privatized to meet European requirements. When the telecommunications sector was opened up to competition in 1998, the company inherited all of this network on a private basis. France Telecom then renamed itself Orange in 2013 and still today, it is this operator that owns the copper network in France.
Why are we ending ADSL?
It is an aging network, too fragile and extremely expensive to maintain, since it represents no less than 500 million euros in annual operating costs for Orange. Moreover, the reason for which it was initially deployed is no longer valid: the telephone can just as well go through fiber.
Other telecommunications techniques are now much more efficient. Indeed, copper is more sensitive to the vagaries of the weather, humidity and more energy-intensive than fiber optics: a subscription that uses copper consumes 4 times more kWh than fiber. Above all, the latter offers a speed up to 100 times higher than that of ADSL. In addition, copper is less and less able to withstand Internet traffic levels where video streaming requires a very heavy data load.
To read: Netflix: which offers the best speed between Free, Orange, Bouygues Telecom and SFR?
Above all, maintaining two networks in parallel makes no sense: it doubles the cost of maintenance, if not more. The time has come for France to make a choice in terms of telecommunications and it is of course fiber that wins the match. Orange has therefore given itself eight years to dismantle it with an end scheduled for 2030.
What are the consequences for other operators?
For Free, there is no doubt, you have to close the copper. Thus, Xavier Niel wants to quickly remove ADSL everywhere in France. Heard by the Senate Finance Committee, the CEO of Free declared that the abolition of the copper network in France was taking too long and that it was necessary to force the last “irreducible” ADSL users to change their subscription, to switch to fiber and satellite or 4G alternatives.
For him, maintaining the copper network would benefit Orange, which benefits from unbundling, ie the fee paid by other operators to Orange to use its copper network and offer ADSL subscriptions. On each subscription of this type, Orange receives a commission which gives it, according to the CEO of Orange, “a tremendous income from a situation“. In addition, Arcep, the regulatory authority for electronic communications, has decided to increase this price, from 9.65 euros to 10.04 euros per month. This decision set fire to the powder, triggering the ire of other operators who are now at war with Arcep and Orange.
What are the consequences for the consumer?
The scheduled end of the copper network means first of all that ADSL offers will no longer be available for subscription from operators: this is the commercial closure. Current subscriptions will nevertheless continue to work. Orange provides in its plan that all copper lines should be commercially closed in January 2026. This will be the first visible consequence of the end of the copper network, in 3 years.
Hard to believe, however, that some will want to downgrade their connection to lower technology. Those who are already fiber subscribers will therefore probably not even notice this change. On the other hand, the “irreducible” of ADSL, as Xavier Niel calls them, are indeed affected by the end of the copper network, which will stop working during the technical shutdown.
To read: Free: Xavier Niel wants to quickly remove ADSL everywhere in France
The CEO of Orange will then press the big red button to turn off the network, at least as we like to imagine. Services that still use it will then stop working. Thus telephones connected to a T socket as well as the subscription to ADSL will no longer work. This technical closure will be done gradually, with a completion of the project scheduled for 2030, as mentioned above.
What to do after the technical closure of ADSL?
Those who have remained subscribers to ADSL until the technical shutdown will then have no choice but to subscribe to a new offer, under penalty of remaining without internet, telephone or television (if it went through cable). ). It will then be necessary to subscribe to a new offer by contacting an operator who can provide it. Overall, fiber optic offers are a little more expensive: this will represent an additional cost to bear.
If their home is not connected to the fiber, its inhabitants will then have to undergo work to bring the fiber to their homes. This type of work can be more or less heavy, depending on the proximity of the fiber network in the municipality. Sometimes it will only be a quick visit from a technician. Other times it will involve much heavier civil works on their land. These works are at the expense of the individual. This decision remains ultimately the choice of the consumer, but some isolated houses could then lose a lot of value if they are not connected to fiber.
To read: Fiber optics: accused of not having made the connection, a technician is sequestered
To avoid work, consumers will be able to turn to alternative technologies such as satellite or 4G. Be careful though: these technologies are negatively affected by weather conditions or the number of people using them simultaneously. In addition, they are often rationed in terms of data volume and sometimes do not offer access to television. Some uses are sometimes impossible, such as video conferencing or online games because they require good latency, and they are also more expensive. It is therefore to be hoped that the landscape for this type of offer will improve by 2030.
To read: Fiber optics: 11.8 million French people still do not have access to very high speed
For those who do not want an internet box but wish to use only a fixed telephone, it will be the same treatment, since the fixed telephone will then go through the fiber optic cables. It will not be possible to subscribe to a fixed telephony only offer to circumvent this problem. The mobile phone will therefore become essential and it will be difficult to do without, even more than today.
