The government is considering changing the rules of the Guichet France THD project to bring optical fibre to rural areas. With the tightening of subsidy modalities, this new set of specifications has already caused local authorities to jump. And it does not go to the side of the corporate telecom players either.

Indeed, for the Association of Alternative Telecommunications Operators (AOTA) and the Federation of Office and Digital Enterprises (EBEN), the executive's proposals even send "very negative and deeply worrying signals for the competitiveness of companies located outside very dense areas". They therefore request a "correction" of the draft put out to consultation until 23 December. The AOTA and EBEN point in particular to the question of the financing of collection, and therefore the existence of activated offers for operators of digital proximity services. Another concern concerns the exclusion of priority sites from the scope eligible for State aid.

In a "totally anemic" corporate market, marked in particular by the difficulties of Kosc and by the "reconstitution of Orange's market power", B2B Telecom players continue "more generally, these new specifications are the exact opposite of the expected measures".

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Source : DegroupNews

CFAST, a publisher of software packages for alternative telecom operators, conducted a survey on the reasons for the shortage of female talent in the telecom sector, and more broadly in the digital sector.

In this dossier entitled "Women's telecoms: freedom, equality, parity? ", you can discover:

• a historical overview of the pioneers of the sector
• companies and associations working today for the promotion of women in the Digital age
• the portrait of professionals: their careers and actions to make things happen

Find the forum dedicated to RezoGirls by clicking here. If you wish to download the complete file, click on this link.

The AOTA - Association of Alternative Telecommunications Operators - has just referred the matter to the Arcep to request the opening of Orange's fibre network. Indeed, the 47 members of the association complain that they do not have sufficient access to it and accuse the incumbent of anti-competitive practices.

Since they cannot build very expensive networks themselves covering the entire country, small operators must first "borrow" Orange and SFR networks. They therefore rent access to the two dominant players in the corporate telecom market and buy voice or data from them at wholesale prices. They then sell them to their own customers.

But here we are, alternative operators feel ousted from the market of companies that have not been able to "connect" enough to the Orange network. With 12.4 million outlets, the incumbent's fibre network is both very large and very capillary. Hanging on to it therefore makes it possible to target SMEs with connectivity needs on several sites or plants spread over the territory. It is precisely these customers who escape the more geographically limited members of the AOTA.

A long-standing problem linked to the lack of fibre regulation for professionals. Indeed, Orange is obliged to offer wholesale offers to small operators wishing to access the copper network (ADSL) but not on fibre. In 2017, Alternative Télécom had already demanded more openness.

However, it is impossible for Orange to open up to competition a network built with billions of investments. Small operators believe that the operator has been favoured by its historical footprint on cable, which it was able to convert very quickly to fibre. Today, Orange controls approximately 70% of the corporate fibre market.

For its part, the French Competition Authority has chosen to regulate this market by creating a third player, Kosc, to "break" the predominance of Orange-SFR. This "wholesale" operator deploys its own fibre network, which it then rents to small AOTA or Alternative Télécom operators. "Kosc is a good complement, but it's one of many solutions. And anyway, the Kosc network does not have the same capillarity as Orange," explains one of these small operators. The ball is now in the Arcep's court.

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Source : Les Echos

In recent weeks, there has been a real rush by mainstream operators of national scope on alternative BtoB operators. This is the case, for example, of Iliad's acquisition of a stake in Jaguar Network or Bouygues Télécom's acquisition of Keyyo and Nerim.
While the operators concerned did not comment, Channelnews interviewed 4 of their colleagues to decipher this new phenomenon: Patrice Bélie from Adista; David Brette from Sewan; Lionel Marchaud from Hexanet and Laurent Silvestri from OpenIP.


Structured around 5 questions, these interviews make it possible not only to analyse this movement but also its consequences: is this impulse not the consequence of the financial precariousness of alternative operators; is this process not the sign of the failure of Arcep's policy to perpetuate this ecosystem of alternative operators?
Topics such as the loss of innovation capacity, responsiveness and agility needed by the SME customers of these alternative operators and the future of this phenomenon are also discussed.

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Source : Channelnews