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Several fiber optic networks, vital arteries of our communications, vandalized in France

Audio 01:59

Acts of sabotage deprived certain major French cities of connection on April 27, 2022 (photo illustration).

Getty Images/Flickr/Kristen Elsby

By: Dominique Baillard Follow

3 mins

Big scare Wednesday, April 27 in France after the sabotage of several fiber optic networks linking Paris to other major French cities.

These vital arteries for our connected lives are also very juicy assets for telecom operators.

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These cables – which we call the backbone of the network – were all severed at the same time in the Paris region and in the Lyon region.

Internet access for Free and SFR customers has been temporarily reduced or cut off.

But ultimately, more fear than harm: because networks are built to withstand failures.

When a digital highway is closed, data can take secondary routes, what operators call “redundant networks”.

This is why, on Wednesday April 27, the problem was solved in a few hours.

Operators have invested colossal sums to build these sophisticated networks.

It is thanks to hundreds of thousands of kilometers of cables that subscribers have high-speed Internet access.

More than 70% of the French territory is already covered and since last year, more than half of subscribers are connected

these buried cables.

Like the pylons that support mobile antennas for laptops, fiber optic networks are strategic assets.

French operators have long cherished them like the apple of their eye.

Today, they seek to value them.

Networks that are very expensive

This means that they are ready to sell their networks.

This is what European competitors have been doing for several years now.

To reap revenue each time amounting to tens of billions of euros, from 10 to 20 billion depending on the size of the network concerned.

They then rent them to the new owners who must take care of the maintenance.

In France, only Orange and SFR have these digital highways, like those that were cut on Tuesday, April 27.

American funds spend crazy sums to acquire them because they are a sure and regular source of income.

Telecom companies are offloading it to get out of debt and amortize very heavy investments over time, explains Roland Montagne, consultant at Idate.

Currently, Telecom Italia, for example, wants to merge its fiber optic network with that of its competitor.

SFR sold its forest of pylons.

Bouygues, Iliad and Orange have also sold these essential towers for mobile telephony. 

Network security in question

Do these financial operations jeopardize network security?

There is a question of sovereignty.

If a malicious foreign company seizes these nuggets, it could endanger the security of the network.

As for the risk of sabotage, this remains an unknown difficult to master.

With the buried cables, the data exchange nodes scattered in the big cities – there are for example five or six in Paris – are the two nerve centers of the networks.

If the nodes are easy to monitor, on the other hand, it is much more complicated for the cables, according to Roland Montagne consultant at Idate.

To preserve the network, professionals are now asking for a resilience plan and tougher penalties for malicious acts.

The sabotage committed in France for unknown reasons, perhaps revenge for subcontractors abandoned by the operators, echoes other fears: with the Russian war in Ukraine, the hypothesis of a cut in subcontractor cables sailors irrigating the planet is one of the worst-case scenarios feared by Western chancelleries.

► IN BRIEF

The world's largest palm oil producer, Indonesia, suspends all exports from today

A decision taken to preserve the national supply.

10% on April 27, following this announcement.

This is a new blow for the oil market already overheated by the absence of sunflower oil exported mainly by Ukraine.

Palm oil is the cheapest in the world, and the most used in industry and in African cuisines.

Since January, its price has gained 63%.

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• France