With the objective of 3 million eligible fibre sockets by the end of the year in these Public Initiative Networks located mainly in rural areas, the operator announced on Tuesday the finalisation of an agreement for the marketing of its fibre offers on the RIPs allocated to Covage.

At the end of this agreement, Orange will be able to roll out its services on certain FTTH networks in Covage: Calvados, Essonne, Haute-Savoie, Hérault, Seine-et-Marne, Somme, Lille and the Dunkirk Urban Community.

Last March, Orange's management claimed a 30% market share in RIPs but is now aiming to take the lion's share on these networks. This approach will necessarily involve partnerships with infrastructure operators specialising in the deployment of these RIPs, such as Covage. The company operates 46 public or private networks and currently covers 2.3 million sockets.

Orange had 350,000 own catches this winter in sparsely populated areas. To reach its target of 900,000 own-access catches in RIPs by the end of the year, the future will therefore depend on partnerships. The incumbent operator wishes to increase the share of catches purchased from partners in these areas to 2 million by the end of 2019. The issue is well understood by Orange, as evidenced by the conclusion of this partnership with Covage.

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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

In the Wall Street Journal the company decided to talk about this disproportionate operation, called "Simba". Very few details have so far been revealed about the project. We only know that it would be connected to existing access points, particularly on some beaches on the east, north and west coasts.

Surrounding Africa with a gigantic submarine fibre optic cable would allow almost the entire population to enjoy the Internet. Facebook knows that to extend, it must absolutely attack this continent inhabited by more than 1.2 billion people and which is not yet very well connected to the rest of the world. This is due to infrastructure that is still under development and completely uncovered areas. So if several million Africans could connect to the Internet tomorrow and create a Facebook, WhatsApp or Instagram account, the social network would save a lot of users in a very short time.

However, there would not yet be a signed agreement for the installation of this huge cable. And this is not the first time Facebook has talked about installing an underwater cable to connect the world. Facebook was pulling a transatlantic cable over 6,500 kilometers long, Marea, in 2017 with the help of Microsoft. The installation began in 2016 and provided a stable connection in 2018 by connecting Virginia Beach, United States to Bilbao, Spain.

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Source : Siècle Digital

Submitted last autumn by the Association of Alternative Telecommunications Operators, the request for an opinion to separate Orange's retail and infrastructure sectors into two separate entities was rejected on 30 January by the French Competition Authority. Indeed, the competition police do not consider it useful to give a favourable follow-up to the study of this referral for an advisory opinion.


The 45 operators that make up the AOTA protest against "repeated problems of access to the Civil Engineering of the Orange operator inherited from the national public domain of telecommunications, itself used by Orange to operate its copper network and constitute a passive shared fibre network currently unavailable in activated mode for competition."


However, the association does not intend to stop there, since it now plans to call on Brussels to defend its positions: "the association takes note of this decision by the independent administrative authority responsible for protecting consumers, whether residential or economic, from unfair practices on the part of private interests. It now also intends to refer the same matter to the European Union in order to obtain its opinion and, if necessary, to take the necessary corrective action to ensure that competition is conducted in a healthy and fair manner on the French telecommunications market."

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Source : ZDNet

It took a year and a half of volunteer work to publish this study on the conditions of access to the Public Initiative Networks (PINs) deployed in France.

This tool is intended for the FFDN's associative ISPs but also for other operators of similar size. Two steps were necessary to achieve it: first, to collect information such as contracts and service catalogues, and then to analyse and present the information obtained. The objectives of this approach are to show the difficulty of associative ISPs to operate on certain networks, but also that it is possible to create conditions that allow them to operate since some RIPs bring them together.

In order to facilitate the visualization of the information collected from each public service delegate, the FFDN has set up a scoring system. Each service offer of a RIP was therefore evaluated using the same methodology containing objective criteria such as the amortisation period of the investments, the minimum number of subscribers and the price for the end user. The conditions proposed by each RIP were then summarized by assigning a score. From A to D, for the networks on which it would be possible to operate. And Z for networks where no activated offer is available in the catalogue or another equally blocking point.

On the map below, taken from the FTTH barometer, we can see that more than a third of the French departments have obtained a Z score. This means that no offer is adapted to the needs of associative ISPs.

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Source : FFDN

For the first time in France, an associative Internet Service Provider (ISP) will be able to connect consumer subscribers in FttH. Indeed, thanks to a participative fundraising campaign, Illyse raised 5520 euros. This sum represents the entry ticket to the RIP (Réseau d'Initiative Publique) of the Loire department. The associative operator will now be able to set up a collection infrastructure. It will therefore be able to connect its first subscribers in early 2019.

But that's not all, since a second level of 4114 euros has been reached. This allows Illyse to become a LIR (Local Internet Registry) and thus receive an allocation of IP addresses from a regional Internet registry (RIR).

A big victory for ISP associations that are demanding cheap activated offers. Indeed, they cannot deploy their own fibre optic network due to lack of resources. Associative operators therefore turn to the network rental of a major player to offer FttH to their members. But in most cases, prices are unaffordable.

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Source : 01net.com

An important milestone has just been reached by the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology - RMIT University. By improving data transmission equipment, the University announces that it will be able to increase fibre optic speeds by a factor of 100.

RMIT University is interested in a particularity of light that is used to transport information in an optical fibre. Indeed, since light propagation can be carried out in a spiral movement (OAM for Orbital AngularMomentum), it is possible to multiplex several signals on the same fibre. This increases the total bandwidth.

In order to exploit the OAM, the University has developed a miniaturized component capable of decoding such signals. "Our miniature OAM nanoelectronic detector is designed to separate different OAM light states in a continuous order, in order to decode the information conveyed by twisted light," explains Dr. HaoranRen. Previously, this required a machine the size of a table, which is completely unrealistic for telecommunications. By using ultra-fine nanosheets measuring a fraction of a millimetre, our invention does this work better and fits perfectly into the tip of an optical fiber. »

A small size and low cost sensor that would adapt to existing fiber sizes. This would allow us to "exploit the full potential of twisted light for future optical and quantum communications," says Dr. Min Gu of RMIT University.

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Source :ZDNet

Copper has long been overtaken by optical fibre, both in terms of throughput and bandwidth. And it is not about to stop there since the fiber will no longer be mono but multi-core! "Tomorrow, it will be possible to accommodate up to seven cores in the same fiber," explains Aurélien Bergonzo, Acome's Director of Technology, Research, Engineering and Prospective. It can even have up to 19 cores and reach throughputs of several hundred Gigabits per second.

The multiplication of the number of cores will have several impacts. This will significantly increase the capacity of a single cable but also reduce the deployment cost. This multi-core technology opens new horizons both from a technical and commercial point of view, especially for operators. Indeed, they will be able to offer companies new services adapted to demand such as QoS and speed.

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Source : ZDnet

After many technical and legal setbacks last year, the horizon is finally clear for Kosc. In mid-June, Banque des territoires (Caisse des Dépôts) invested 20 million euros in the capital of a new subsidiary, Kosc Infrastructures, in order to contain the operator's network assets. Guénaël Pépin reviews with the operator these last months in an article from Nextinpact.

While wholesale offers for operators are tending to become more widespread, hopes are essentially focused on Kosc. Indeed, the company, co-founded in 2016 by OVH, aims to break the duopoly of Orange and SFR in this market. To access the local loops of major operators and thus cover the whole of France, Kosc must connect its network to hundreds of NROs. In practice, it recovers Completel's national network to connect to Orange and SFR's local networks. Through these various networks, the company hopes to become a single control point for professional operators.

However, Kosc did not have the financial resources. 100 million over five years to cover the entire private deployment area. The financing of Caisse des Dépôts was therefore necessary. "The investment by the Bank of the Territories makes it possible to finance the implementation of the 100% fibre coverage strategy in the private zone" confirms Kosc. The creation of the Kosc Infrastructures subsidiary allows Caisse des Dépôts to limit its control to major infrastructure decisions. As for Kosc, this allows it to better link its private deployments with future contracts with RIPs. After a year and a half of competition between public and private infrastructure funds, the company's choice "naturally" turned to a RIP concession model. "Caisse des Dépôts was able to make us a financial offer that matched our ambitions. Beyond the financial aspect, she brings us the expertise of her teams who benefit from an excellent understanding of market issues, due to her experience working alongside RIPs" assures Antoine Fournier, General Manager of Kosc.

However, the operation almost failed. Indeed, one of the investment conditions of the Bank of the Territories was the proper technical and legal functioning of Kosc. However, several technical and organizational problems with SFR, when the assets were transferred, took them to court. "Not all the disputes with SFR are behind us, so we don't want to express ourselves any further on the subject. All we can say is that our partners have largely congratulated us on our perseverance during the legal battles of recent months. Just because Kosc is under legal pressure from a powerful player does not mean that Kosc bends" the company says.
 
Despite its disputes with SFR, the network is now operational. The company has around thirty customer operators and has been online since mid-July with more than 2 million eligible catches throughout the country. Even the competition from Bouygues, SFR and Orange on the "bitstream fibre" offers does not worry the operator. "Thanks to the mobilisation of Kosc Telecom teams, there is now a first bitstream fibre offer and your question shows that the market is finally opening up! It is so much better for our operator customers" adds Antoire Fournier. Kosc does not intend to stop there as it now installs itself in "neutral" data centers to open access to its backbone links, its professional fiber collection and enterprise fiber.

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Source : Nextinpact

Public Service Delegation contract (PSD) Pays Voironnais Network (PVN) interconnected to the Lyon Internet exchange point, to the LyonIX 2 POP. The Pays Voironnais PSD proposes offers on optical fiber and DSL on the Voiron (Isère) region. It does not sell directly to the companies because it is an operator of operator. All the offers are thus presented by telephone companies or Internet.

Until today, not many operators had taken the step, to traffic services on PVN because it was necessary to them to join physically the network of PVN since Grenoble or Lyon causing significant costs, especially for the first customers.

From now Pays Voironnais Network allows all operators who want to provide services on the Voiron region to make it directly since LyonIX, with the same charges as if they were physically in Voiron, this local offer always remains valid.

So, PVN neutralises a relative isolation of Voiron in term of Telecom and allows to accelerate the offers and flow rates development, with a reduction in the prices expected for the end users (companies, public bodies).

The interconnexion advantages

For Alain Sommerlatt, person in charge of PVN, " it is a new start for Voiron economic zone because LyonIX assembles the majority of Telecom actors of the Rhône-Alpes region, and it will now be simpler and faster to them to join our network of Voiron fiber, without any additional cost. "

Samuel Triolet, Rezopole director adds: "we can thus expect this DSP revitalisation which already has a fine network, passing as closely as possible to the regional companies. Thanks to the providers Telecom and Internet concentration on LyoIX and GrenoblIX IXP, the DSP projects, as PVN, can propose more offers, more quickly, with better rate flows, and the end users will only take advantage of it."

To know more:

www.lyonix.net

www.grenoblix.net