Fibre: Pressure on infrastructure operators
Even if the deployment of fibre optics is beating all records, there are still many hurdles to overcome in order to guarantee very high speed broadband.
Starting with the quality of service, a subject that continues to mobilise the authorities. The failure rate for final connections is still around 17%, compared with 25% a few months ago. Although there is some improvement on this front and the 'noodle dishes' in the mutualisation points and the optical connection points are tending to decrease, the situation is not without irritation for Cedric O.
When questioned, the Secretary of State for Digital Affairs did not mince his words against infrastructure operators, who are in charge of deploying fibre optics on the territory. "If qualitatively, things seem to be going a little better, we are not at the end of the story," he said, before pointing to the responsibility of Orange and XpFibre (ex-SFR FttH) in this matter.
The two operators have still not ratified the new version of the subcontracting contract with the commercial operator (STOC), unlike their competitors - Altitude, Axione and TDF. Implemented a few months ago, the V2 of this contractual framework is intended to restore order to relations between building operators, commercial operators and their subcontractors.
Although the delay accumulated by XpFibre and Orange in signing the STOC V2 contract should soon be resolved, the infrastructure operators still have work to do to remedy the defects in the final connection. This problem of the quality of final connections is not new. A working group set up by Arcep on the subject was already reporting in 2019 on "significant rates of defects in the execution of final connection and cross-connection operations at the point of mutualisation".
Source : ZDNet