The government has finally approved the deployment of its first three Calls for Local Commitments (AMELs), representing 465,000 additional FTTH outlets by 2023. "After a favourable opinion from Arcep, the government has accepted the commitments made by operators under Article L, 33-13 of the French Post and Electronic Communications Code to provide optical fibre coverage to subscribers (FTTH) in the rural areas of the Côte d'Or (Altitude Infrastructure), Lot-et-Garonne (Orange) and 3 of the departments of the South PACA region (SFR)" said the Ministry of Territorial Cohesion and Relations with Local Authorities at the end of last week.

 

Announced at the National Territories Conference in December 2017, these AMEL zones were presented as "the opportunity for local authorities to benefit from the deployment or extension of very high speed networks financed by operators' own funds". The objective is to provide around 1.5 million households in rural areas with broadband and very high speed broadband while giving local authorities the opportunity to directly involve private operators.

These first three MELAs have yet to be confirmed by a ministerial order in order to make the commitments "binding and enforceable, exposing operators to financial penalties if they fail to comply".

 

Last April, some associations of local authorities regretted the delay in the deployment of AMEL zones. This slingshot could therefore have borne fruit... Especially since the government has already indicated the organization of a meeting with "operators and associations of local authorities in order to draw an assessment of this system". It even invites "operators to finalise their proposals as soon as possible, in conjunction with the local authorities concerned".

A boost for the deployment of these AMEL zones and more generally for the France THD Plan, which aims to cover the entire country in very high bandwidth by 2022.

 

 

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Source : ZDNet