Meet us on Friday, December 17, from 9:30 am, by videoconference for the RUG #26.
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It is clear that white areas are not limited to rural deserts. They also concern tourist areas that are very popular in the summer with cyclists, hikers and coastal travellers.
In the Luberon, if optical fibre has arrived in Isle sur la Sorgue or Maubec, ADSL is particularly anaemic in Gordes, and 4G is almost absent. The various local players are suffering from the disinvestment of the main operators and the public authorities. The latter are struggling to impose a minimum service for services that are now essential at a time when administrative procedures are being dematerialised.
If digital technology is on everyone's lips today, once you leave the urban areas, you are in digital poverty with a two-speed France.
In a report published on 16 January 2020, the former rights defender Jacques Toubon stated that "in municipalities with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants, more than a third of the inhabitants do not have access to quality Internet, which represents nearly 75% of municipalities in France and 15% of the population". Fortunately, alternative Internet service providers and digital development companies are helping rural communities. They are setting up small-scale radio networks accessible to individuals and small businesses. These are essential local initiatives, as the France Très Haut Débit plan, launched in 2013, and the New Deal Mobile, launched in 2018, are struggling to eradicate the digital divide and ensure equal access to the Internet for all French people.
Source : Le Monde Informatique
"As you all know, 2020 will have been a pivotal year as we have validated the merger of Rezopole with France-IX, and we are now France-IX Lyon.
This choice has been carefully considered throughout the year 2020, with you, our members, the Rezopole team and the Board of Directors.
This choice will allow us to pursue and develop our know-how around the Internet network, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region and throughout France.
I would like to thank in this last "Annual Review" all those who believed in the Rezopole project and supported us despite the difficulties:
See you at a future event."
Philippe Duby,
Former President of Rezopole
Vice President of France-IX
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.
Source : 01net
Come and discuss the theme of supervision in your infrastructure during the next RUG! Meet us on Friday, June 4, from 9:30 am to 12:00 pm, by videoconference to share points of view and feedback with the France-IX teams (Lyon and Paris).
On the agenda:
Useful information
On March 9th, the European Commission unveiled its vision "for a successful digital transformation of Europe by 2030". A series of objectives to be met in less than ten years, such as the availability of all key public services on the web or the increase in skills of individuals.
5G is one of these objectives. Mobile broadband is gradually arriving on the Old Continent and Brussels wants this new technology to be available in all populated areas by 2030.
According to the European Commission, 14% of populated areas will be covered by 5G by 2021. A figure that may seem high given the very recent nature of this standard. But the wording chosen by the European executive excludes uninhabited areas, which in fact evacuates large parts of the continent from the calculation. Nine years would therefore be enough to fill the remaining 86%.
But countries are free to go faster if they wish. In France, the entire network could be in 5G by 2030. This is in any case the perspective that the former president of Arcep, Sebastien Soriano, has drawn in 2019. A first step will have to be taken in 2025, with two thirds of the population covered.
The timetable for 5G contains several appointments, depending on the imperatives of territorial planning (coverage of major transport routes and more rural areas) and the circumstances of current events (like the Summer Olympics Games in 2024). In addition, the regulator will provide additional licenses to operators to operate additional frequencies.
Source : Numerama
InfraNum has just announced "a major agreement between operators to improve the quality of connections and guarantee the durability of fiber networks in France". The quality of the operations of connection to the optical fiber is currently under fire, the federation of digital infrastructure manufacturers is trying to reassure. A framework has therefore been put in place and will be set out in numerous agreements between access providers and network operators... some of which have yet to be signed.
For 18 months, infrastructure operators (RO) and commercial operators (CO) have been working together to draw up these new Stoc contracts (for commercial operator subcontracting). The aim is to improve an operating mode that everyone is keen to maintain: the Internet access provider (OC) connects its subscriber, as a subcontractor of the network operator (RO).
Indeed, in the face of the influx of demand, its defenders argue that this is the most efficient way to operate in order to make things happen quickly. But not to do well, retort the detractors of the Stoc mode denouncing degradation, connection failures or access cuts.
The Stoc mode is therefore striving to make its transformation, "to improve the quality and safety of interventions, the processes and speed of connection, and the training of those involved". InfraNum therefore announces that discussions between network operators and ISPs have led to progress in three areas:
While the industry federation assures that "the first signatures have already taken place for rapid generalization and immediate implementation," it concedes, however, that this "new contractual framework" has not yet been fully deployed.
For example, network operators Axione and Altitude Infra have signed "with the majority of OCs", while things are "on the right track" for TDF. On the other hand, there is nothing on the progress of discussions with Orange and SFR, which have the particularity of being both commercial operators and network operators, particularly in public and private initiative zones.
A little more patience therefore before this new major agreement is implemented in unison on all networks and between all operators and ISPs. The interest for stakeholders is that it "avoids imposing a regulatory decision". The Arcep is currently conducting a consultation on the subject.
Source : DegroupTest
The annual report on the quality of experience of the services offered by mobile operators in mainland France has just been published by the specialized firm Qosi. This document is intended to report on user experience on 2G, 3G and 4G networks marketed by operators during the year 2020.
This study is based on feedback from 42,000 contributors spread across 20,000 municipalities in France. And the results reflect a growing disparity of situations, whether in the countryside or in the city. By 2020, 23% of metropolitan municipalities will have a low-quality 4G network, with the vast majority of flows below 10 Mb/s. Worse still, 3% of the municipalities surveyed do not have any usable data network... 95% of these municipalities are located in rural areas.
Nevertheless, it should be noted that the quality of service of mobile networks is constantly improving, both in the city and in the countryside. In terms of downstream speeds, for example, Orange is one step ahead of its competitors in 2020, with the best average speed at national level. The incumbent operator is followed by SFR, then Bouygues and finally Free.
Despite widespread improvement, this is still not enough to widen the yawning gap that now separates rural and urban connections.
Take the case of Orange. Even by improving its downstream speeds by 10 Mb/s in all geographical areas, this is still not enough to close the gap between the quality of service observed in rural and urban areas. The operator is thus the one with the greatest disparity in speeds between the different strata of the population.
Conversely, Free is progressing uniformly throughout the country, making it the operator offering the most consistent quality of service.
The same applies to upload speeds. Orange has the best average upload speed in France. But the difference in treatment will remain significant depending on whether users are in urban or rural areas. In spite of this, the incumbent operator has established itself as the operator offering the best speeds for all population strata. Next comes Bouygues Telecom, followed by SFR and then Free.
This territorial divide is logically reflected in the results of the quality of service offered by operators on web browsing. At the national level, the proportion of pages displayed in less than 10 seconds is 92% for Orange, 89% for Bouygues Telecom and SFR and 86% for Free. Here again, rural areas are down 5 to 10 points compared to urban areas. This is enough to push operators to redouble their efforts to finally hope to bridge the digital divide in 2021.
Source : ZDNet
Couldn't make it to the RUG on November 27th? Don't worry, Rezopole's technical team offers you a catch-up session on Friday, December 18th.
The program remains the same:
Over the past two or three years, the acceleration in fiber deployment has been clear, but the hardest part remains to be done: connecting the least dense areas of the territory. Despite the government's efforts - generalization of fiber by 2025 by mobilizing nearly 300 million euros to support the latest projects not yet funded - the account is not there. The reason: to serve scattered housing or isolated businesses, the cost of so-called long connections is very high and for some, it may even be prohibitive.
The answer must emerge from "negotiations with the various local authorities on the financing of their projects, with major demands that may not be able to be met exactly," explains Cédric O. Indeed, the Secretary of State wants "to match needs and subsidies to achieve the goal of 100% fiber in 2025. For the specifications, we'll see afterwards".
Non-standard connections are also available in less dense areas of private initiative. The question of the effective availability of fiber arises for homes and businesses that are isolated and/or difficult to serve. This is the case in the AMII zone, where Orange and SFR's commitment was to make 100% of premises connectable by the end of 2020. Including 8% on request because they are considered more complex to serve or not a priority.
If the health crisis has pushed back the deadline for these commitments, they will finally be reached in 2021 according to Nicolas Guérin, Secretary General of the French Federation of Telecoms. For Arcep, it is the responsibility of the State to ensure this. For Sébastien Soriano, President of the Regulatory Authority, "no worries" about SFR's compliance with the deadlines. However, he believes that there is "a landing point to be built with Orange".
A common ground could be found on the launch of offers for premises that can be connected on demand. This would enable a little over one million homes and businesses "set aside" during the initial deployment schedule to be connected within six months of the order being placed with an access provider. Nicolas Guérin, also Orange's General Secretary, explains that after having made massive deployment, the incumbent operator is now able to "move to a more qualitative deployment".
On the Arcep side, where "procedures are under way" to gauge operators' compliance with completeness rules, we are waiting to see if these offers will enable us to respond to the problems identified. In any case, Sébastien Soriano considers it desirable that these on-demand connection offers should first arrive in areas that have been scheduled for more than five years - and sometimes much longer - and where 100% of the premises are not yet connectable.
The question of the durability of the FttH networks also arises, particularly concerning the connection in Stoc mode. Access providers want to connect their customers themselves. While network operators are not against this, they are concerned about connection failures and the damage this causes. Both parties are not desperate to find new agreements before the end of the year, in order to clarify the responsibilities of each party.
All of this is under the watchful eye of the communities that own the public-initiative networks. If it is not surprising to hear elected officials thundering against the Stoc mode; it is more surprising to see a member of the government raising his voice on this very operational issue. "It's not possible," Cédric O. hammered out, "We are in the process of ruining what we are achieving" by strongly encouraging those concerned to solve the problem: "Either we know how to solve it intelligently between people of good will, or the State will have to make more complicated decisions, even if it means causing inconveniences in the system".
Stakeholders therefore no longer seem to have much leeway to save the Stoc mode. And to achieve this, the representative federations - InfraNum for the networks, the FTT for the operators - need to get around the table, thus pleading the case of several players in the ecosystem. This is also the opinion of Benoît Loutrel, commissioned by the French Secretary of State for the Digital Economy to study "securing the deployment and operating conditions for FttH networks". His task will be to re-examine the France THD program. The report he will produce in a year's time will "not be intended to put pressure on this or that actor, but rather to problematize and find a method", warns the interested party. It will propose ways to "transfer learning feedback" between territories, to "organize the interplay between public authorities and industry", and finally to "anticipate the resilience of networks".
On this last point, while burying is a common sense choice in the West Indies, it is no less relevant in metropolitan France.Climate risks also weigh on an air deployment that is anything but marginal, argues the Bank of the Territories. As part of its recovery plan, it plans to allocate additional resources to support local authorities in their landfill projects and secure access to major network sites. To this end, a call for projects will be launched in 2021.
Source : DegroupTest
Based on an October U.S. report referring to the 3.7-3.9 GHz band used by 5G, the French Civil Aviation Authority (DGAC) is concerned that the first 5G antennas could disrupt guidance systems inside aircraft. Indeed, this would create a "major risk" for aircraft radio altimeters that also rely on these frequencies. This system is the only device on board aircraft to be able to measure their distance from the ground or other obstacles. Philippe Barnola, Deputy Director at the DGAC, specifies that "Complementary technical analyses are underway to ensure the compatibility of these 5G stations with the needs of civil aviation".
And this is particularly disturbing for operators, who explain that they were informed of the problem once the frequencies were paid for. Now they fear delays in the deployment of 5G.
While operators will initially focus on city centers, they fear that they will not be able to cover more or less wide areas around airports in the future. And this could concern cities in some cases, such as those around Roissy or Orly airports.
The operators have therefore decided to write to the Secretary of State for Digital and Electronic Communications. For its part, SFR is threatening not to pay the first installment it owes the State for frequencies. While Bouygues Telecom wants to be compensated "in proportion to these new constraints".
In the office of the Secretary of State, they want to reassure themselves: "In Germany everything is going well, there is no reason why it should be any different in France". The protection zones around airports will be adapted for 5G, for example. Work has also been launched at the European level.
The same applies to the National Frequency Agency (ANFR). "In the end, there will be a delay of a few weeks or even months on a limited number of antennas near airports [...] There will be no sustainable exclusion zones. French airports have 2G, 3G and 4G. They will also have 5G."
Source : Kulture Geek
Grégory Rabuel, CEO of SFR, announced the launch of the 5G in Nice on the evening of November 20th at BFM Business. Just over 50% of the city will be covered by this new generation mobile network.
While Montpellier, Bordeaux, Nantes, Marseille and Greater Paris will be the next cities to be covered in 5G by the operator, other municipalities are calling for a moratorium on this technology.
SFR also unveiled its commercial offers for the general public and businesses. For their part, Orange and Bouygues Telecom have communicated their offers to the general public but without announcing their coverage plan. Free talked about a launch in "the coming weeks".
While operators have been able to use their 5G frequencies since November 18th, they are still subject to administrative procedures related to technical authorizations to be filed with the ANFR and requests for information from city halls.
However, several mayors who are environmentalists or left-wing mayors, such as in Lille and Grenoble, have declared that they are in favor of a moratorium until the publication of a report from the ANSES, scheduled for spring 2021.
In the capital, the Paris council voted to create a citizens' conference on 5G, while part of the public is wary of the health and environmental effects of electromagnetic waves.
Even though 5G promises to offer up to 10 times faster throughput in the long term; above all, operators are counting on its launch to manage the increase in traffic and avoid saturation of their mobile networks.
Source : Le Parisien
After ten months of proceedings, the Arcep ruled in favor of Bouygues Telecom regarding the wholesale prices charged by SFR FTTH to other national or regional operators. The latter are grafting themselves onto SFR's optical fiber network in the countryside in order to be able to offer this technology in areas where their own networks are less developed.
The Arcep was seized last January by Martin Bouygues' operator, after a price increase on the SFR side. Indeed, to access a "package" of SFR lines, operators had to pay 5.80 euros per line and per month, compared to 5.48 euros for Orange. Line rental prices had increased to 16.40 euros per month and per line.
SFR FTTH was able to increase its prices because, when it comes to optical fiber, only Orange's rates are regulated. For its part, Bouygues Telecom demanded two things: a return to the rates in effect before the February 1, 2020 increase and a reduction in line rental prices, with a range of 12.20 euros to 13.20 euros.
The regulator ruled in its favor on these two issues. SFR will therefore have to offer Bouygues Telecom an amendment to the contract to restore the old rates within one month. As regards line rental, SFR is required to propose a new tariff to Bouygues not to exceed 13.20 euros per month and per line.
This is a real setback for SFR, which by the end of 2018 had sold half of its fiber optic network in the three-fund campaigns. The latter had paid a very high price for this asset, no doubt enticed by the promise of high and long-term rental revenues.
But two years later, the operator had to lower its prices. In addition to this, Free has also filed a complaint with the Arcep on the same subject.
Source : Les Échos
Arcep takes stock of the 4G mobile coverage of the metropolis. The Telecom gendarme estimates that the territory is today 96% covered by at least one operator and 76% covered by all operators.
Within the framework of the New Mobile Deal, "2,066 zones have been identified by the local authorities. ...] To date, 462 new sites are providing voice and SMS services with "good coverage" thanks to 3G and very high-speed mobile broadband (4G) in areas that have been identified and prioritized by the local authorities," the regulatory authority points out.
Operators' commitments/obligations are also verified by Arcep. Identified by an order dated July 4, 2018, 445 sites were to be implemented by October 9, 2020. Assessment: "403 of the 445 sites have been commissioned, i.e. nearly 91%. ...] The causes of the delays in bringing the other sites into service are currently being analyzed" by the regulator's services.
"Arcep welcomes the good progress of the Mobile New Deal, thanks to the mobilization of operators, local players and public authorities. The Authority will ensure that the operators fully respect all the commitments they have made," concludes Sébastien Soriano.
Source : NextInpact
To ensure the quality of fiber deployment, the government will launch a mission to monitor FttH deployments.
The most visible aspect of the degradation of the state of fiber networks is in some street cabinets. The model of entrusting the connection of subscribers to Internet service providers, in a relationship of subcontracting to network operators, is regularly blamed for these setbacks. And the various protagonists are still struggling to come to an agreement to put an end to the mess.
Some observers also point to the original choice to move the points of pooling as close as possible to residential or professional premises, to the detriment of a more centralized and therefore more secure architecture.
But beyond the state of the cabinets, the upstream part is also in the sights of this major control operation that the government intends to launch.
Indeed, the initiative is based on a set of alerts, notably concerning the undersizing of transport cables. In some places, the amount of lightpaths available would be insufficient to serve all users.
There are also concerns about imported fibre optics, which do not appear to be fully satisfactory.
The vulnerability of fibre networks to climatic hazards also explains this renewed vigilance.
The objective stated in the mission letter of this monitoring operation: "to better secure deployments and operating conditions on public-initiative networks" (RIP). And to find "remedies" for potential problems identified.
Fiber networks deployed by operators using their own funds, in very dense areas or in less dense areas of private initiative (AMII in particular), would therefore be excluded from the scope of this monitoring mission.
Will it be a matter of leaving it up to the operators to ensure the proper functioning of their own network, while the State would only do so on RIPs, where public funds have been committed?
Source : DegroupTest
