19/07/2016

Could it be possible that our Orange problems have finally been resolved?

An engineer turned up. It was T1, from last time – although his friend T2 was absent. This time, T1 had taken the trouble to test the cabling along the road on his way here. He had found that the old cable running alongside the main road was perished, and damaged in several places by tree-branches. The cable on our property – which was installed four years ago to connect us to the telephone network – was still fine.

The trees along the damaged section need to be pruned before a new cable can be installed. And who is responsible for this unenviable task? According to the Orange engineer, it’s the local council.
Now a few weeks ago we were discussing things with a young farmer near here (coincidentally, he just happens to own the land along which the damaged cable travels), and he informed us that the village had been doing its utmost to avoid this sort of work. Instead, they insist that this sort of thing is the responsibility of the landowner. I do hope that is not the case. If so, it will be a very long time indeed before this particular farmer does anything about it, because:
a) his father passed away earlier in the year and he’s having to run the entire farm on his own; and
b) he’s rather a difficult character most of the time anyway.
Mind you, even if the village turns out to be responsible, it will still be a very long time indeed before the village does anything about it. And I don’t have a stepladder tall enough.

Anyway, LSS visited the Mairie in the afternoon to tell them that Orange had requested that the trees be pruned.

As a temporary measure, the engineer removed the wall box which was installed when we were first connected four years ago. He replaced it with a new one, and this time it has a proper telephone connector rather than just an RJ11 port marked in bold type “TEST PURPOSES ONLY”. He then plugged in an ADSL filter, and connected the Livebox to that. At least the telephone works now. We’ll see if it lasts.