Poissy. The arson of a telecom room sprayed with gasoline causes a huge internet cut
78Actu, October 31, 2022
Since Sunday, October 30, the Internet network is cut in the area of Poissy (Yvelines) following a fire in a telecom room. The cut should last a week.
This is an inconvenience that professionals and individuals in the area of Poissy (Yvelines) would have been well without. At 6:47 a.m. on Sunday, October 30, firefighters were called to a trash can fire in a residential area of Poissy, rue des Capucines.
On the spot, they noticed that the fire came from an Orange trapdoor located in the ground. According to the fire and rescue center, no major damage was reported, as the fire did not require “any major intervention”. At least in appearance… On social networks, many residents of the area of Poissy, Carrière-sous-Poissy, Chambourcy and Aigremont complained of an internet and landline phone outage.
Contacted by phone on Sunday afternoon, the Poissy town hall assured that the breakdown affects all operators. “We have no visibility on the restoration of internet in the sector of Poissy but we expect a return to normal quickly, “said the municipality.
The telecom chamber sprayed with gasoline
However, on Monday, October 31, the technicians dispatched to the site by Orange made a very different observation. They noticed with astonishment that a large quantity of hydrocarbon was present in the burned telecom room. The company then discredits the thesis of a technical incident.
From the blackened hole emanates a strong smell of gasoline and burning. All the cables for the fiber, ADSL and telephone are dead,” said one of the Orange technicians on the scene. We must first clean up the telecom room before we can act to restore the internet.” Also reached by phone, Orange said “to have filed a complaint for arson”. A police investigation has been opened.
The operation of the hospital of Poissy impacted
In addition to the citizens, many businesses suffer the Internet cut. In shops, such as the Carrefour shopping center in Chambourcy, it is impossible for customers to pay by credit card, as payment requires an Internet connection.
Even more seriously, the outage also affects the hospital in Poissy, 10 days after the partial closure of the pediatric emergency room due to a lack of doctors. “We can’t register patients who come into the hospital in our software,” says a nurse on a smoke break. One of her colleagues added: “We no longer receive data on patients transferred from one department to another. We’re back to using paper as we did in the old days.
The hospital’s communications department is nevertheless reassuring: “We are ensuring continuity of care and have managed to re-establish an emergency Internet network to use certain software.” However, the major difficulty remains making appointments, as the establishment no longer has access to the Doctolib platform.
Once the telecom room has been cleaned, Orange’s priority is to repair the fiber for the hospital’s internet network [Note of Sans Nom: and certainly the police]. For the latter, a return to normal is expected by Thursday. For the rest, no date is advanced. But according to some Orange technicians, the failure could last “at least a week”.
Translated by Act for freedom now!