Major Orange internet network outage hits France

Anyone with an Orange tariff or internet plan may have encountered problems connecting to the internet via a fixed connection or a mobile, as the network was hit by a major breakdown.

The news began to spread after users logged the problem on the website “Down detector”, which is one of several online services that checks if a website is “only down for you” (e.g. the problem is with your personal connection or device), or if it is affecting many more people too.

The outage was reported from about 12h onwards, and mainly affected fixed computer connections, although problems were logged from mobile users too, in about one quarter of cases.

Problems particularly affected Tours, Paris, Lyon and Nantes, with fewer issues reported in Bordeaux, Rennes, Marseille and Strasbourg.

Orange - which operates in 28 countries worldwide - has 12 million broadband Internet customers in France, and well over 10 million mobile users, according to figures on its own website.

Figures suggest that by the end of 2016 - including all users and business accounts - Orange had 30 million customers in France.

The company has not yet made a public statement on yesterday’s outage.