Hello all. Fibre has eventually come to Collioure. I booked an Orange package, the new modem arrived and the engineer came to install the equipment. Unfortunately he took one look at the current telephone cable which is 23 years old and runs underground from a telecom box outside my neighbours house into my garage (approximately 30m) and said the gain (cable duct) was too small to run a new cable. The cable duct is 15mm in diameter and the current telephone cable fills most of the ducting leaving no room for a 2nd cable.
Who do I contact to run a new cable? An electrician or builder or should Orange replace the telephone cable with a fibre cable? What sort of cable do we need to run? I’ve spoken to Orange who are very unhelpful and just keep repeating that there is work to do at my expense before I can re-schedule the installation. They are really looking for a green coloured cable duct which new houses would have and are approximately 40mm diameter. I’m loathed to randomly dig up my driveway and the public road in front of my neighbour to install a new green cable duct.
Hopefully someone out there has experienced a similar situation. Thank you in advance for any help.
Our telephone line ran under the house and was not usable. On the advice of Scopelec we had a trench dug across the courtyard by a terrassier. Not cheap, but worth it for fibre speed and reliability.
Hi, I am the other side of Perpignan to you and everything was done by Orange and their contractors, I did not have to pay or sign anything either. I have a brand new house so the gaines were already in and they just threaded it through upto the house and into the cellier and the fuseboard as it is built into the main electric one. I think remembering now, we got onto Free our internet supplier who arranged it all, maybe your provider will do it but it was nothing to do with the electrician or Enedis. Yes I can confirm you need the green plastic gaine in the ground, we all have them sticking out here and it was about 25m from there to the cellier which is inside the house.
We had an issue because although we had the correct green duct in place between our property and the telegraph pole, there was a blockage somewhere and to complicate things no access box (“regard télécom”) had been installed originally.
We are in 33 so used this company to locate the blockage - https://rdetek-reseaux.fr/
Our landlord then hired someone with a mini digger to dig where the blockage was and where we wanted to install the regard télécom. Orange then came back eventually and did their bit.
Like @EmilyA says, not cheap but worth it as I work from home 5 days a week. Fibre being installed has been a game changer for me.
Thanks Emily. Did you dig the trench and green duct run to the edge of your property, to the original telephone box or into the new fibre hole in the middle of the road?
Hi,
When we were getting fibre installed the Orange contracting technician at first had problems pushing his “cable threader” (tire fils) through the telephone cable duct and when I asked him what were the options if he was unable to get it all the way through he said first option would be to use the existing telephone cable as the tir fils, attach the new fibre cable to it and pull it through from the road to the basement using that .
Digging up your driveway to install a new duct I would imaging would be quite expensive, replacing the existing telephone cable, (ours is 6mm in diameter) with the new fibre cable ( 5mm in diameter, duel core) shouldn’t cost you anything. If you still want to use your telephone fixe then it can be connected to the back of your new Orange Livebox5 and you can have your old Tel number transferred to use that.
If you don’t have the contractors tel number then start with the Orange help line Tel. 3900 , I have always found them very friendly and helpful and maybe they can put you in contact with the contractors.
That’s amazingly helpful - thank you. I’ll get an electrician to try and pull through the new cable with the old cable as you suggest. The Orange technician just wasn’t interested in anything other than a new green duct. Here’s a photo of my existing telephone duct in the garage floor.
… while an electrician could probably pull a new fibre cable through for you I am not quite so sure Orange would be 100% happy with that. Personally I would first check with Orange either directly or use the “communaute.orange” forum page and ask about it there.
If you do go the electrician route make sure he leaves plenty of fibre cable at either end for the Orange contracting technician to do his routing and connections.
Fibre had already been installed underground in the commune when we bought the house. The existing phone line was under the house so we got an electrician to put a wire through, which with great difficulty, he managed to do. Orange was not available at that stage and another provider came, broke the electrician’s wire and went away saying it was impossible.
When Orange became available, Scopolec did a survey, concluded that the original fourreau was blocked and said that the easiest route was across the courtyard from the underground telephone point just outside. The terrassier dug the trench and installed the new fourreau complete with wires to pull the fibre through. A plumber was working on the house at the time and he drilled through the limestone walls to the correct access point for the router.
The actual installation was extremely quick and easy. The total cost for us was not far short of 1000€, but before that we had 1.5 ADSL or wobbly 4g.
We are waiting, and waiting, to get connected to fibre.
Much activity over the last 12 months with installation of fibre in our commune. Underground in the village and overhead in the wider area. All looks finished and rhe contractors have moved on. Lots of boxes and new cables on the pole nearest our house from where the current overhead line comes to our house.
Have registered with Orange for updates for when fibre will be avialable. When checking availability on line it advises that fibre is avialable at addresses within our hamlet.
I rang Orange last week only to be told that fibre was not yet available?
When it is I presume that our connection will be over head rather than underground.
I will just have to be patient.