2023-12-23 22:46:28
Girona Eleven kilometers from Ripoll in the direction of Berga is the municipality of les Llosses, one of the largest in the province of Girona, with 114 square kilometers of farmhouses, scattered houses and parishes, where about 200 people live. For decades, the neighbors have suffered recurrent failures with internet and telephone coverage, which sometimes leaves them incommunicado for whole days, unable to surf the internet or make phone calls. In the last year, however, they say that the cuts have been constant, to the point of extending for more than 24 hours in a row. And they’re fed up: “Very often there are connection problems, unfortunately we’re used to it, so if we have to do important management, we have to go down to Ripoll with the laptop because you can’t rely on it in Les Llosses ”, says Gemma, a neighbor who runs a rural house.
The cause of the problem is Telefónica’s telecommunications antenna that was installed in 1993 and that provides lines to Movistar operators. It is located near the Puigdon mountain, is not connected to electricity and is powered by a diesel generator set, which often causes incidents. “It seems that someone steals the fuel, or it runs out and they don’t refill it, and then it stops working”, comments the mayor of the municipality, Jaume Cuní, who adds: “Since April we have had 15 major incidents, we are in contact with the company and we ask the administrations to help us to try to electrify the repeater and solve the situation”. The mayor considers that the fact of being a small municipality takes its toll when it comes to getting the company to prioritize them. “This is a comparative grievance with the rural world, if these cuts happened in a big city they would surely be resolved by now.”
The Telecommunications and Information Technologies Center of the Generalitat de Catalunya (CTTI) has moved the file and will begin to study a possible solution. Cuní also explains that, aside from Les Llosses, the antenna outages leave the neighboring towns of Borredà, Sant Jaume de Frontanyà (Berguedà) and Alpens (Lluçanès) without connection; and they also interfere with the land telephone rescue network of firefighters and forestry agents.
Regardless of the antenna outages, the connection to the Les Llosses network, when it works, is generally nothing short of amazing. According to 2022 data from the Ministry of Digital Transformation, fiber optics does not reach any home in the municipality and the maximum speed of broadband coverage in the area, when there is a line, is 30 megabytes per second.
Cancellations for not answering the phone
Apart from the daily annoyances of not being able to answer the whatsapps or look at the mobile, connection failures directly affect the businesses of the village. At the Puigcercós refuge, at the foot of Pic Comià, interference makes it difficult to manage reservations and communicate with customers. “The problem is exaggerated, at least every two weeks we are left incommunicado without being able to receive mail,” laments Olga, owner of the shelter. “At the beginning of September, for example, I was waiting for a group to arrive, and since they weren’t coming, I took the car to a point with coverage, and it turns out that they had been calling me, and since I wasn’t answering , they took it for granted that he wouldn’t be there and left for another establishment – he remembers -. Fortunately, we have not been in the situation of having an emergency and not having a connection, but if it ever happens, we hope that 112 will work.”
Beyond losing reservations or having difficulties with work, the response in case of emergency is the main fear of the residents of the municipality. In Les Llosses, the houses are very far apart, the families live in isolation and they fear that, in the event of an accident that requires medical assistance, the telephones will be without a signal: “We live in the countryside and, if we get hurt, the mobile phone is the ‘the only way of connection we have’, concludes the mayor.
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