“I fear that our fellow citizens and the French will discover that the telecommunications networks depend on electricity.” Before the Committee on Economic Affairs of the Senate, the director general of Orange, Christel Heydemann, warned of possible network cuts this winter.
In fact, in the event of a harsh winter, Enedis could carry out localized and temporary load shedding -that is, power cuts- in the event of an overload of the electrical network. “Unfortunately, telecommunications networks are not considered priority sites,” criticizes Christel Heydemann.
And to add: “it is illusory to think of putting batteries at the feet of each of the mobile sites in France” and “illusory to imagine that, in the event of a load cut, we will be able to maintain a continuous service for all the French”. people.”
What about the emergency numbers?
Obviously, it would suffice for a repeater antenna to be in an area affected by load shedding for the entire network to be cut for one or two hours. Including emergency numbers.
The question is not new. In mid-October, the French Telecommunications Federation already alerted Tech&Co about the risk situation.
Alarmist speeches that contrast with that of the government. “In the scenarios we are considering, and if at any time there were power supply problems, there are the so-called ‘resource antennas’, which are well distributed throughout the national territory. And in fact, a single antenna, for example from a single functional operator, is enough for all the emergency numbers to work,” said the government spokesman, Olivier Véran, on Tuesday during the press conference at the end of the Council of Ministers.
Source: BFM TV
