After long negotiations, the government and Orange have just agreed on an action plan to improve the quality of service of the copper network. Indeed, even if the deployment of optical fibre is progressing rapidly, the 22 million French people who still have an active line based on this network must not be overlooked.

The plan therefore provides for an additional 10 million euros to be committed to 17 priority territories, as well as 123 new posts in departments under pressure and a 30% increase in national crisis response staff.

The incumbent operator will have to provide a back-up solution within a maximum of 24 hours from the time the incident is reported, provided there is mobile coverage. If the mobile network is not sufficient, a satellite connection will be made available from the town halls.

Local consultation committees will be set up to improve consultation between Orange and elected representatives. A national consultation committee will also include representatives of the Commission Supérieure du Numérique et des Postes (CSNP), representatives of associations of local authorities and government departments.

It should be remembered that the total dismantling of the copper network will begin in 2023 and will extend until 2030, as fibre optic coverage of the territory progresses.

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Source : 01net

In Lévis Saint Nom, in the Yvelines department, a team of Orange technicians is working to remove the overhead copper lines in the town. This experiment should prepare the great operation of "decommissioning" of copper that will concern the whole country from 2023.

Drawn from the sixties and especially in the seventies, copper lines have brought telephone service to the French. They then allowed access to the Internet via ADSL technology in the late 90s. In December 2020, Arcep still counted 16 million households using ADSL. A figure that will decline inexorably due to the effect of fiber optic connections. Indeed, the government has set itself the goal of connecting everyone to FttH by 2025.

It was therefore becoming difficult to maintain this aging network, which is energy-intensive and expensive to maintain. With 22.6 million lines still active and 1.1 million cables, 60% of which are in underground trenches, this is a titanic undertaking.

Orange, the historical owner of the copper network, has signed an agreement with Arcep to conduct dismantling tests.

"We chose Lévis Saint Nom to begin with because of its 1,600 inhabitants, its 700 homes and the fact that there are few businesses. This typology is representative of 80% of the communes in France," explains Laurence Thouveny, Director of Orange Île-de-France.

When the "decommissioning" process began in June 2020, there were still 120 copper customers in the commune. Each commercial operator then had to convince its customers to switch to fiber with the guarantee, for those using only the telephone, to have similar tariff offers. Eight subscribers are still clinging to copper, but on March 31, whatever happens, Orange will cut everything.

"There is no technical difficulty with stopping copper. The main issue is to accompany customers and contact them one by one to propose alternative offers," summarizes the technical director and information systems of Orange Marc Blanchet.

The extinction of copper has only just begun and should not be completed before 2030. This long process will be carried out in patches, zone by zone, with extremely long lead times of several years.

Finally, the disappearance of copper does not mean the end of the fixed telephone, which will be able to continue to function via optical fiber, without any obligation to subscribe to an Internet service.

After Lévis Saint Nom, two other cities will be chosen in the coming weeks to continue the experiment.

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Source : 01net

The fixed market regulation project concocted by the Arcep, already approved by the Competition Authority, has also just been endorsed by Brussels. Composed of two parts, it specifically concerns Orange for one part and all the players for the other.

One of the main objectives is to encourage Orange to put an end to copper and therefore to ADSL as quickly as possible so that it is not tempted to prolong the "rent" of the copper network. The incumbent operator will thus no longer have the right to open new copper access in buildings where the four major players are present in fiber optics. It will also have to more easily connect businesses and homes far from its network on demand, in order to fill the holes in the coverage racket and increase the rate of FttH adoption.

The telecom policeman has set another goal to contain Orange's dominance in the enterprise market. Indeed, all ISPs using its shared fiber to offer commercial offers to individuals will now also be able to do so for businesses.

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Source : 01Net

Kosc was unsuccessful against Altice and contested the decision taken by the Competition Authority. Indeed, seized on the occasion of the sale of Completel's copper network, the competition police last week issued its verdict: "there is nothing to define that Altice has committed a fault with regard to its obligations".

This is a major blow for the wholesale provider of telecom services to operators in the enterprise market, which has been denouncing SFR's parent company's late deliveries for months. This decision is all the more difficult to accept as its financial equation has become significantly more complicated.

But the operator does not intend to stop there since he "rejects", in a press release, the verdict of the Competition Authority and announces that he will bring the case before the Conseil d'État. A referral "motivated by the numerous irregularities that have marked the follow-up of the case by the Competition Authority, including the unexplained duration of its investigation in a context of urgency and the probable violation of its secrecy".

In addition, the company believes that the abandonment of Banque des Territoires (Caisse des Dépôts group), one of its main supporters, can only be explained by an understanding of the result favourable to Altice - SFR upstream.

Kosc warns against a prospect of consolidation that it now considers itself the "privileged target of a hostile acquisition" in view of its financial fragility. An operation that would "de facto close the business telecommunications market to the detriment not only of the ecosystem of hundreds of digital business service operators but also of the beginning of catching up on the digitalisation backlog of French SMEs and VSEs", warns the operator.

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Source : DegroupNews