Whether through the development of teleworking, videoconferencing or recreational uses, the French are making greater use of the various telecommunications networks, both fixed and mobile, during this period. But the situation seems to be under control in France.

In an interview by Les Dernières Nouvelles D'Alsace, Arthur Dreyfuss, President of the French Telecom Federation, explains: "We have seen an unprecedented increase in the number of connections from the very first hours and this is maintained throughout the confinement. [...] The need for telecoms networks is vital for work, entertainment and information."

And according to him, France is doing better than some of its neighbours. "But unlike other European countries, the networks in France hold, and help to ensure the country's continuity. [...] This is because operators have invested 20 billion in two years in infrastructure and they are collectively committed during this period."

He also points out that "despite the difficulties related to containment, technicians are working hard to meet the commitments, continuing deployments to bring new connections into service, in particular the antennas on the 140 mobile sites that are being pooled under construction. But we are facing many operational difficulties related to the crisis, which are obviously causing us to fall behind".

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Source : Univers Freebox

As part of the France Très Haut Débit plan, the operator in the red square has undertaken to cover around 20% of medium-density fibre territories, compared with 80% for Orange. They are, however, obliged to open up these networks to other operators at "reasonable prices" under the Arcep.
However, SFR has recently decided to increase its tariffs and the move has irritated Bouygues Telecom's staff.

Bouygues Telecom, like other operators, considers that the rates charged by SFR are no longer "reasonable". So much so that Martin Bouygues' operator formally filed a request for dispute settlement with Arcep more than two months ago. In detail, SFR's so-called "co-financing" tariff has been increased from EUR 5.32 to EUR 5.80 per line per month as of 1 February. The rental price for a single line rose from EUR 16.40 to EUR 16.73 per month.

SFR was already more expensive than Orange before its price increase. These prices are all the more unjustified since connecting to the network of the operator with the red square is, for technical reasons, more expensive than at Orange. Some argue that SFR's strategy is designed to discourage its rivals from offering competing fibre offers in the medium-density area.

This risk was recently mentioned by the chairman of Arcep, Sébastien Soriano: "Today, in private areas, Arcep is working on a project in progress, since one of the major operators deploying fibre has pricing practices that raise questions. I mean that we are working on it. The Arcep will not leave any stowaways in the system. It will not let a player take advantage of the situation to charge higher prices by having established a private monopoly. You can count on the Arcep to dot the i's on that."

A good connoisseur of the sector, however, tempers criticism of SFR. On the one hand, he argues that Patrick Drahi's operator has a higher cost base than Orange. On the other hand, he wonders why Bouygues Telecom only applies to Arcep today, when the rental price of SFR's line has remained stable since 2012. He also believes that Bouygues Telecom could also have chosen to co-invest, at least in part, with SFR, instead of resorting solely to the rental of single lines. In any event, it is now up to the regulator to arbitrate.

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Source : La Tribune

A saturation of the Internet networks was mentioned several times at the beginning of the containment. A risk that is globally non-existent except locally on over-solicited mobile antennas. This is what nPerf has just revealed in a study specially dedicated to the impact of containment on Internet speeds. The specialist in connection evaluation thus observes a slight drop in performance on mobile networks, but that of fixed connections has not weakened.

Indeed, mobile networks in residential areas were not really designed to handle the extra traffic overnight. They were used much more than in normal times, and the fact that all residents shared the same antenna meant that they were unable to deliver their usual performance.

A 10% drop in average flow rates, i.e. 4 Mb/s, was observed on average over the end of March. Accompanied by a drop in browsing performance, notably at Orange and Free, while streaming remained stable. Despite this, nPerf believes that the overall picture remains "very acceptable" for the four operators.

On the other hand, confinement has not really had a negative impact on fixed Internet speeds. According to the tests compiled, the overall situation even tended to improve at the end of March. This is the case at Bouygues Telecom, SFR and Orange, with the exception of Free.

Fiber Internet speeds remained stable overall at Orange and Free. For its part, SFR has posted steady growth since the beginning of the year, which has not been contradicted despite the containment. Bouygues Telecom's Internet bandwidths also increased at the end of the quarter.

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Source : Ariase

Even though its network had not yet been built, Free Mobile was able to play a real role as the fourth largest telecoms operator on the French market as soon as it arrived in 2012. How did this happen? Thanks to the 2G / 3G roaming agreement negotiated with Orange.

An agreement validated by the Arcep on the condition that it is only temporary. Roaming between Orange and Free was therefore scheduled to end at the end of 2020 but both operators have just requested an extension until the end of 2022.

On February 24th, the Arcep indicated that it had received an amendment announcing an extension until December 31, 2022. This amendment is justified by "the impossibility for Free Mobile to catch up with the market coverage standard which has increased significantly with the Crozon mutualisation agreement and the New Deal obligations despite a very proactive deployment".

Free also points to the need for 2G coverage in order to maintain a certain number of subscribers in 2G but without having the resources to deploy a network. In addition, the other operators maintain 2G as a "fallback technology in certain situations, particularly indoors at peak times".

This news is not going to be well received by Bouygues Telecom and SFR. Indeed, they have constantly denounced the roaming agreement between their competitors, considering it to be a competitive advantage for Free.

SFR's representatives are already castigating Free's decision to distribute dividends and to try to prolong the agreement instead of investing in its networks.

SFR and Bouygues Telecom have announced the suspension of the payment of dividends, but this is also in order to benefit from government aid linked to the short-time working of some of the staff.

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Source : Génération NT

The data published by the National Frequency Agency for the month of March shows that the health crisis has not really had a visible impact in figures on the deployment of 4G.

In fact, as of April 1st, ANFR recorded a 1% increase in requests for authorizations and activation of 4G sites from one month to the next. This is the usual rate, but the restrictions were not put in place until mid-March and there may be a delay between the installation of an antenna and its activation.

The impact is likely to be observable in the data for the coming months as operators are now giving priority to the maintenance and resizing of their networks. The objective is to cope with the high demand on the networks - voice and data - and the new geographical situation brought about by confinement.

The emergency law voted to deal with the consequences of the coronavirus epidemic includes a digital infrastructure component for mobile operators. They will be able to use a "simplified procedure for sites that will ensure continuity of service". However, this initiative is too recent to be included in the March report, as "the request for authorisation of sites authorised on 1 April was received before this system was applicable", explains the ANFR.

Orange was the most dynamic in March, with 350 new sites, followed by SFR (276), Free (251) and Bouygues Telecom (83). The incumbent operator maintained its leadership in terms of the number of 4G sites operated (21,830), ahead of SFR (19,000), Bouygues Telecom (18,188) and Free (15,586).

The situation is slightly different in terms of the number of activated antennas. Orange is also the leader here with 1,481 new activations. But it is Free that we find behind with 1,016 activated antennas. Activity was significantly less intense in March at SFR (553) and Bouygues Telecom (352).

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Source : DegroupNews

The Internet is made up of access links that route traffic to high-bandwidth routers and accompany the traffic from its source to its destination using the best available path.

In order to ensure that Internet traffic can be routed anywhere in the world, these individual high-speed fibre optic networks must be interconnected. This interconnection is therefore called backbone or Internet backbone interconnection. Each network is owned by Internet operators, usually private, Tier 1 operators whose networks are interconnected.

These Tier 1 Internet operators create a single global network by bundling their long-distance networks, allowing each of them to access the entire Internet routing table. This allows them to efficiently route traffic to its destination through a succession of local, tier 2 and tier 3 providers. These backbone operators all use the same shared network protocol: TCP (Transmission Control Protocol)/IP (Internet Protocol).

The networks of these Tier 1 operators are connected at the IXP (Internet Exchange Point) level. These exchange nodes, being equipped with high-speed switches and routers, allow traffic to be routed between peers (participants connected to the exchange node using the BGP protocol to make traffic). These interconnection points are often owned by third parties, sometimes on a non-profit basis, thus facilitating the unification of the backbone.

Tier 1 operators participating in the IXP contribute to their financing, but do not charge each other for carrying the traffic of other Tier 1 operators. This type of relationship is known as "peering" or "peering without agreement". Peering avoids possible financial disputes that could impact Internet performance.

There are smaller Tier 2 (Tier 2) and Tier 3 (Tier 3) operators. Tier 3 operators allow businesses and consumers to access the Internet. As these Tier 3 operators do not have their own access to the Internet backbone, they contract with Tier 2 or regional ISPs that have their own networks to carry traffic to a limited geographical area.

As access does not concern all devices connected to the Internet, the second-tier providers in turn contract with the first-tier providers to have access to the global backbone.

In summary, traffic originating from a computer on one side of the globe can connect to a connected computer on the other side of the globe by sending the traffic to a Tier 3 operator. This operator routes the traffic to a Tier 2 operator who redirects it to a Tier 1 backbone operator. The latter then redirects it to the appropriate Tier 2 operator. The operator itself sends this traffic to a Tier 3 operator who delivers the traffic to the destination computer.

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Source : Le Monde Informatique

With the coronavirus crisis, the France Very High Speed Internet Plan, which aims to offer all French people a high-speed fixed Internet connection by 2022, is under threat. This huge project has indeed slowed down considerably with the containment measures.

The president of InfraNum, Étienne Dugas, warns: "If nothing is done, everything could stop within two weeks." At the end of the line, a lot of small and medium-sized companies could fall. Beyond the economic and social breakdown, he estimates that it will take months to restructure the sector and thus relaunch the machine once the epidemic is over.

To avoid such a scenario, Étienne Dugas believes it is essential to maintain fibre deployment activity at the current level. He therefore requested the support of the executive last April 1st during a meeting between representatives of the Telecoms sector and the ministers in charge of Territorial Cohesion and Relations with Local Authorities.

Both InfraNum and the French Telecommunications Federation (FFT) consider it essential that the government publish its Covid-19 guide for the construction industry as soon as possible in order to provide a framework enabling workers deploying fibre to work in safety. Especially since according to InfraNum and the FFT the FFP1 protective masks are sufficient.

Another concern of the industrialists is that many subcontractors can no longer work due to a lack of agreement from the communities. While others have difficulty accessing buildings to connect them to the fibre. Infranum is therefore asking the government to take steps to remove these obstacles.

Finally, an appeal has been launched to provide financial assistance to the fibre industry to keep the most fragile subcontractors afloat. According to Étienne Dugas, the major operators must also "make an effort to enable the sector to survive this tsunami."

Asked about this, the CEO of the FFT, Michel Combot, emphasizes that "the crisis has an impact on the turnover of operators." According to him, Orange, SFR and Bouygues Telecom are considering ways to support their own chains of subcontractors. "Discussions are underway. Operators could take different types of measures, such as efforts on payment deadlines. We are well aware of our global responsibility."

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Source : La Tribune

On March 30th, the European Union's telecoms regulatory agency (ORECE) said that no major Internet congestion problems had occurred since the start of the Covid-19 health crisis: "Network operators have been able to cope with this additional traffic load". While overall traffic on fixed and mobile networks has increased significantly, there has been no major downtime across Europe due to possible over-consumption of bandwidth, she explained.

The statement comes after worrying predictions by several experts that the Internet infrastructure may not be able to cope with the increase in traffic.

Although some Internet access problems were "observed and mitigated," they were deemed "local and temporary." No unusual incidents were observed by the agency, which also commended the telecom operators in some member countries for implementing specific measures.

In some EU Member States, the ORECE noted "a stabilisation of traffic", but also "a decrease in peak traffic". This decrease is attributed to "traffic reduction measures" put in place by "some of the largest CAPs", a term used to refer to Internet content and service providers.

Indeed, two weeks ago, the agency formally requested video streaming services to reduce the quality of service for European users in order to avoid overloading the EU's Internet architecture. The first to agree were Netflix and YouTube and have started to provide SD streams. Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and Facebook responded later and also capped the quality of video streaming for the EU.

Although not approached by the ORECE officials, Akamai, Microsoft and Sony also slowed down game downloads during peak hours to avoid congesting the Internet infrastructure when a new game or update is released and deployed to millions of users.

Some experts, however, have publicly criticised the agency's call, castigating unnecessary panic. Several ISPs said that the Internet backbone had been specially designed for times like these and is therefore designed to handle sudden and very large volumes of traffic.

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Source : ZDNet

Due to the containment caused by the coronavirus outbreak, telecommunications operators are expecting an increase in the load on their infrastructure.

Invited by franceinfo on 17 March, the president of the French Telecommunications Federation, Arthur Dreyfuss, called for "digital responsibility" to avoid saturation. He warns that operators "may need to adapt" and "prioritize" certain uses to cope with these peaks in connections.

franceinfo: Will the infrastructure withstand the shock?

Arthur Dreyfuss: More than 15,000 technicians and engineers from all telecom operators are mobilised to ensure that the networks will hold up for the next few days, weeks, or even months. We are entering an era of social discipline and we must also enter a period of digital responsibility, both individual and collective. This is a completely new situation. The bulk of the population will be at home at the same time, all day long, for the coming weeks and months.

We are on the verge of a rise like we have never seen before. The operators are fully mobilized and we are working hard to make sure they can operate.

Does that mean rationing digital consumption?

No, but there are everyday gestures to be apprehended. At home, for example, it's better to use Wi-Fi to make calls, work, communicate and get information. This makes it possible to switch to fixed networks with greater capacity than mobile networks.

But we are going to combine telecommuting, distance learning for children, digital entertainment... Aren't the networks going to overheat?

We are used to absorbing consumption peaks, but we are going to live with a continuous increase in consumption. All individuals and companies must adapt and prioritize. It is a collective responsibility.

Could the operators come to curb the most consuming uses?

In this period, the priorities are the health of the population, working at home, the pursuit of economic life... We may indeed need to adapt to meet these priorities and we will work with all the players to adapt if necessary.

It's like the highway crossings at the end of July, beginning of August. You have to know how to adapt your consumption in the same way that you sometimes adapt your traffic.

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Source : franceinfo

A new contract between the Region, the 4 Auvergne departments and Orange, signed 10 months ago, provides for broadband coverage of the entire Auvergne region by the end of 2020. Everything suggests that this objective will be achieved, as will the goal of making 91% of the Auvergne population eligible for fibre by the end of 2022.

In order to finance the equipment of rural areas, the Auvergne Region and the 4 departments had created a Public Initiative Network (RIP). Last year, Laurent Wauquiez renegotiated phase 3 of the RIP, getting the national operator to do "better (800 communes instead of 400), faster (2022 instead of 2025) and for less (137 million saved)".

A monitoring committee was then set up to ensure that Orange respects its commitment. It met for the second time on 7 February. Jérôme Barré, Head of Wholesale Markets at Orange, declared bluntly: "In 2019, we have hit the grand slam".

In figures: 50% more sockets connected in 2019 than in 2018, 166,000 customers already connectable, 48,000 customers connected, i.e. a penetration rate of 28%.

Since July 2019, connected households have been able to choose another operator, Free. Jérôme Barré also announced that the entire offer (with SFR and Bouygues) will be available in 2021. And this will be a first for an RIP.

On the business side, Orange is committed to "putting fibre everywhere". An offer at 250 € is proposed to them, whereas the previous tariffs were prohibitive, Laurent Wauquiez recalled.

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Source : La Montagne

Published on February 4th, a Tactis study shows that in peri-urban areas, around 30% more sites will be needed to offer a 5G service level equivalent to 4G. This is particularly true in rural areas, where twice as many sites will be needed to provide equivalent coverage, and up to three times as many to deliver a broadband service.

To arrive at these estimates, Tactis experts have simulated 4G coverage in several peri-urban and rural areas from existing mobile antenna sites. They then simulated what 5G coverage would look like based on these same sites. In its projections, Tactis uses only the 3.5 GHz frequency band. However, it is clear that coverage is much less in 5G than in 4G.

Why such differences? Because the frequencies used to provide 5G will not be the same as for 4G, and they do not have the same characteristics. "Current 4G deployments use low frequencies, which carry far, while the high frequencies that will be used for 5G deployments, in the 3.5 GHz band, offer a lot of throughput but carry much less far," explains Julien Renard, radio expert at Tactis. However, the Tactis simulations do not include the 700 MHz frequency band, even though these frequencies are low and allow much better coverage of territories. To explain this choice, Julien Renard points out that the 700 MHz band will not allow us to benefit from "all the promises of 5G". It is impossible, he says, to offer a real broadband service with these frequencies.

The densification of 5G networks in the heart of cities and the most urbanized areas, which are generally very profitable for operators, will certainly be a priority for Orange, SFR, Bouygues Telecom and Free. On the other hand, the firm is looking at peri-urban areas and rural areas, which are less profitable. To acquire 3.5 GHz frequencies, operators will have to commit to ensuring that by 2024 and 2025, 25% of the number of 5G sites deployed will be in rural areas. However, there is no obligation to deploy new sites in rural areas. However, this will be an imperative for providing quality 5G coverage, according to Tactis.

The risk? A new digital divide between urban and rural areas. The latter could end up, in the long term, with non-existent or poor quality 5G networks. The solution to further densify the networks could come from a greater mutualisation of mobile infrastructures.

Operators are already thinking about this. In an interview with Les Echos, Stéphane Richard, CEO of Orange, judged that "the question of an advanced mutualization is raised. [...] Orange has signed (agreements in this sense) in Spain, Poland and Belgium. In France, some of our competitors already share their networks to a large extent; we are also thinking about it". The major manoeuvres could start as early as this year, once the 5G frequencies have been allocated.

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Source : La Tribune

On December 17th last, Arcep announced that it had agreed with the authorities on the specifications for the future 5G call for tenders. To afford the first 50 MHz blocks in the 3.5 GHz band, each operator will have to pay the fixed sum of 350 million euros but also meet the various commitments set by the authorities.

The remaining 110 MHz, in the band concerned, will be auctioned in blocks of 10 MHz. The starting price for the latter was set at €70 million. However, this should not be the business of operators. Indeed, they were campaigning for the authority not to set too high amounts in order to allow them to invest more heavily in the deployment of their future 5G networks.

The authorities should therefore obtain from this call for tenders, at least, a total sum of "2.17 billion euros for all the frequencies allocated". However, they have not been greedy in the light of the various 5G auctions organised by our neighbours, such as in Germany or Italy.

The specifications should be published in the coming days and will officially launch the award procedure conducted by Arcep. Candidate operators will then have eight weeks to prepare their application files.

Applicants will not be able to obtain less than 40 MHz of frequencies and will therefore not be able to obtain more than 100 MHz of frequencies in the 3.5 GHz band. The frequencies will be allocated for a period of 15 years and may be extended for a further 5 years if there is a subsequent agreement between the authorities and the operators concerned.

The examination of the applications submitted by the candidates should start in March. The Arcep will make its arbitrations and allocate the first fixed blocks of 5G frequencies at the end of March. The actual auctions will take place in May, while the procedure will be finalised in June.

However, the obligations on operators will not change. As initially planned by Arcep, the specifications provide for the opening of 5G in at least two cities per operator before the end of 2020. Subsequently, operators will be forced to deploy their services on 3,000 sites in 2022, 8,000 sites in 2024 and finally 10,500 sites in 2025.

But let's not forget the rural areas. Thus, 25% of the sites in the 3.5 GHz band "of the last two milestones will have to be deployed in an area bringing together municipalities in sparsely populated areas and those in industrial areas, outside the main urban areas", Arcep said.

The Authority also states that "from 2022 onwards, at least 75% of the sites must have a throughput of at least 240 Mbit/s at each site. This obligation will gradually be extended to all sites until 2030".

In addition, as provided for in European texts, roads are also a priority. Coverage of motorway-type roads will thus have to be ensured in 2025, before coverage of the main roads is planned for 2027.

Operators will also have to undertake to respond to "reasonable" requests from companies and public authorities, in order to provide them with "appropriate offers with coverage and performance, or, if the operator prefers, by entrusting them with its frequencies locally".

The authorities are demanding more cooperation between operators in order to ensure better indoor coverage of buildings and to ensure greater transparency on their deployment forecasts and breakdowns. Finally, operators will also have to undertake to welcome MVNOs to their respective networks "in order in particular to encourage innovation by all actors in the sector".

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Source : ZDNet

An exceptional success for FttH deployments in public initiative areas, the France THD Plan was designed to equip homes in the most fragile areas (rural, mountain and island) with optical fibre. It thus unifies the technical conditions for deployment throughout the national territory.

Covering 100% of the territory by 2025 is a prerequisite for the competitiveness of the French economy within the European Union. Successive governments have supported this ambition by providing significant financial assistance on an equal basis with communities. A balance that has now been broken...

Indeed, the National Conference of Territories in December 2017 marked the weakening of the France THD Plan: the closure of the FSN window, public aid of 3 to 5 billion to private operators as part of the "New Deal Mobile", the abolition of €100 million in subsidies to local authorities...

The government's announcement of the reopening of the window on 15 October 2019 was not accompanied by any realistic budget projection to finalize this critical infrastructure project.

The State persists on the figure of €140 million while the estimated needs are 4 to 5 times higher. The Senate's proposals to supplement with €322 million in commitment appropriations were rejected. After the failure of the Joint Joint Committee, Members of Parliament are therefore the last resort of local authorities.

The elected representatives' associations therefore invite the deputies to pay attention to Article 38 - State B of the Mission économique proposed in the second part of the text and to oppose any amendment that would delete this essential provision from the draft Finance Act.

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Source : Avicca

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