One month after the validation by Arcep, the contract was finally signed between the department and Savoie Connectée. This transaction comes two years after the departmental council terminated its contract with Axione, a Bouygues subsidiary. At the time, an investment of €223 million was planned: €63 million financed by local authorities and €70 million provided by the region, the State and the European Union.

In 2017, elected officials from the Maurienne had entrusted Fibréa with the installation of its own fibre optic network. The departmental council then accused the latter of having unbalanced the public service delegation concluded with Axione. Mauritian elected officials said they had had enough of waiting for the department to deploy the fibre. They had therefore taken charge of it themselves to ensure the development of their territory.

A few months after the termination, the government proposed to local authorities to deploy AMELs to accelerate the installation of optical fibre in rural areas. A system enabling departmental councils to have the deployment financed from operators' own funds.

The Savoie department has therefore chosen this framework to deploy its fibre optic network in rural areas. And it is Savoie Connectée that finances the cost of the works, relying on its shareholders (Covage with 70% of the capital and Orange with 30%). Within four years, 255,000 sockets will have to be connected in 243 municipalities in Savoie. Almost the entire territory of the department will then be connected to very high bandwidth.

The operation is not new for Covage since the operator operates the DSP for optical fibre in 246 municipalities in Haute-Savoie. And he was also awarded an AMEL in Saône-et-Loire.

This eliminates the need for the department to worry about funding and shortens the deployment time. The maturity date is 2023 instead of 2026 in the terminated contract with Axione. However, the departmental council will have paid 6.8 million euros in compensation to Axione to free itself.

A year ago, Covage acquired Fibréa, the company that has wired nearly 500 kilometres of optical fibre in the Maurienne. Therefore, the repetition of the scenario from the previous contract is ruled out. "This avoids any subsequent conflict," agrees Hervé Gaymard, president of the Savoie County Council.

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Source : La Tribune

The Calls for Demonstrations of Local Commitments announced in December 2017 at the National Territories Conference were then presented by the authorities as "the possibility for local authorities to benefit from the deployment or extension of very high speed networks financed by operators' own funds".

Three of these AMELs had received a favourable opinion from the Arcep last March and an authorisation from the government. The first of these systems was finally the subject of an agreement signed on Monday between the operator Altitude Infrastructure and the Conseil départemental de la Côte-d'Or. By the end of 2022, the end of this agreement, 57,000 households will be connected by Altitude Infrastructure, including approximately 8,000 before the end of 2020. This AMEL will complement the Public Initiative Network set up by the Department to obtain 100% FttH coverage in the Côte d'Or.

Two other Calls for Demonstration of Local Commitments, in Lot-et-Garonne and in three departments of the South-PACA region operated by Orange and SFR, should follow the same path as the government announced last March. This system should "provide all French people in metropolitan France and overseas with a minimum speed of 30Mbits/s by the end of 2022" in accordance with the objectives set out in the France THD plan.

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Source : ZDNet

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