Tech

Orange outage: emergency call numbers are restored after major disruptions

This Tuesday, January 17, 2023, many Orange users encountered difficulties in making landline and mobile calls to emergency services such as Samu and the fire department. After several hours of severe disruption, the operator has just announced that routing to these essential numbers is operational again.

orange breakdown emergency
Credit: 123RF

The sense of timing is rather disastrous. While the new CEO of Orange Christel Heydemann is due to present the operator’s new strategy in just one month, a new outage has just affected the Orange network this Tuesday, January 17, 2023.

Indeed, during a good part of the afternoon and in more than twenty French departments, it was particularly complicated to reach emergency services via landline and mobile calls. According to the first information shared by the operator, 60% of calls to the SAMU (15), the fire brigade (18) and the European emergency number (112) could not be answered…

Faced with the urgency of the situation and the potentially dramatic consequences of such a breakdown, Orange quickly spoke on Twitter. Here is what the company said at 4:23 p.m. on the social network: “Fixed and mobile calls to emergency services (15, 18, 112) are severely disrupted throughout France. We invite people who wish to join the emergency services to reiterate their calls”.

Orange reacted quickly this time

In the process, Orange wanted to be reassuring by specifying that “all Orange teams are fully mobilized to restore services as soon as possible”. Fortunately, the breakdown will not have lasted in the endas confirmed by the operator on the bluebird around 5:30 p.m.: “The routing of emergency numbers has been operational again since 4:45 p.m.

Orange adds that a “increased vigilance” was set up for monitor the network and prevent further damage. Remember that this is not the first time that emergency calls have been disrupted on Orange networks. In June 2021, a major breakdown had paralyzed the emergency services. Orange had shared temporary numbers during the time needed for repairs.

The Minister of the Interior had described this blackout as “serious and unacceptable” and the ex-CEO of Orange Stéphane Richard had been summoned by the government to take stock of the situation. The operator had made a formal apology, and soon after authorities demanded an external audit be held to find “the causes and consequences of this incident”.

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