Afutt Observatory: 7 times more complaints on fixed Internet than on mobile

The French Telecommunications Users Association (Afutt) yesterday presented the results of its 2022 complaints observatory, which accentuates the shift observed in the last five years: the fixed Internet sector generates many more complaints and dissatisfaction than the mobile one.

“The trend of complaint rate of fixed vs. mobile has been observed to increase since 2017 and increased by 6 points between 2021 and 2022. The number of mobile subscribers is more than double that of fixed line, we conclude that the conflict rate on fixed lines is today 7 times higher than that of mobile”, explains Afutt, who underlines that “the results of the 2022 Observatory fit into a context in which the quality and durability issues of fiber optic networks are becoming increasingly evident and insistent as bad workmanship in the installation comes to light, malfunctions multiply and undersizing is already appearing in some areas. This situation is all the more critical as operators have started withdrawing their ADSL offers in so-called fiber areas, and knowing that the copper network will be purely and simply dismantled by Orange in the years to come. »

Afutt also reports service outages that sometimes last several weeks or even months. After these outages, delivery-installation problems are the second main reason for complaints (16.9%).

Still on fiber, Afutt denounces that none of the thirty fiber infrastructure managers meet all the service quality criteria defined by Arcep, the telecommunications policeman. Only twenty-nine of these operators manage to satisfy at least half of them, which is very little.

As regards mobile telephony, the number of complaints continues to decrease. Termination, invoicing and forced sale (price increases applied under the guise of a “good deal”) or hidden form the podium of reasons for dissatisfaction.