This financing agreement is the first of its kind between the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the French operator. The aim is to support the deployment of Bouygues Telecom's 5G network, "including in rural areas", and to increase its mobile radio network capacity "fourfold" by 2026, the EIB said in a statement.

Bouygues Telecom plans to invest €1.5 billion in the rollout of its 4G and 5G networks and in the fibre market, where the operator plans to win over 3 million additional customers. The group hopes to increase its subscription revenues by at least 40% over the next five years while increasing its profitability.

"Bouygues Telecom has great ambitions for mobile and 5G in the years to come and wants to help open up regions by reducing the digital divide. The European Union Bank's support for this vast industrial project is a validation of our choices and confirms the relevance of our strategy," said the operator's deputy CEO Christian Lecoq, quoted in the press release.

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Source : Le Figaro

With more than 33,000 consumer alerts via the "J alerte l'Arcep" platform in 2020, the telecoms regulator reveals a 37.5% increase in complaints compared to 2019.

Among the 4 operators (Orange, SFR, Bouygues Telecom and Free), the worst performer was Free, generating the most negative requests from the French. It thus takes the place of SFR. In detail, Bouygues Telecom had 19 alerts per 100,000 customers. This compares to 25 for Orange, 26 for SFR and 29 for Free.

The French have used the Internet much more in 2020, with the various confinements, and have noticed many problems. "This year again, the most frequent complaints received concern the quality of service, including after-sales service. Next comes dissatisfaction with network developments (fibre rollout, insufficient mobile coverage, etc.), in particular fibre rollout, followed by operators' commercial practices and difficulties encountered when changing operators", explains Arcep.

Generally speaking, French people's satisfaction has fallen. If the average for operators was 7.65/10 in 2019, it was 7.5/10 in 2020.

The biggest differences are in fixed-line services. SFR customers give SFR a satisfaction rating of 6.8/10 compared to 7.5/10 for Orange.

For mobile, the scores range from 7.4 for SFR to 7.8 for Orange and Free.

While the operators' customer services are generally poorly rated. Free does well with a 2.6/5, while SFR closes the bench with a pitiful 1.8/5.

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Source : Journal du Geek

France's leading Internet service providers ranked it as one of the largest consumers of bandwidth a year ago. These groups, such as Google, Netflix, Akamai, Facebook, take advantage of the tips of French operators without paying their fair share.

The French Telecoms Federation (FFT) and its president are therefore calling for "more equity". In an interview with Le Figaro, Arthur Dreyfuss explains that "80% of the taxes paid in France by digital players are paid by French telecom operators. At certain times of the day, 80% of telecom network traffic is due to YouTube, Netflix, Amazon and Facebook".

Under these conditions, the FFT proposes to introduce a toll, i.e. to charge for access to the networks of French operators. As these pipes are extremely profitable for American giants, access providers are wondering when they will participate in financing the infrastructure. Indeed, ISPs must constantly invest in expanding and improving their networks. These are therefore heavy financing for which the Internet giants participate little or not at all.

This proposal does not come about by chance since the government wants to introduce a tax on the advertising activities of the largest digital companies. It should be implemented very quickly since it has just been voted by the Senate.

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Source : Journal du Geek