Together, your Internet even better

Articles tagged with: telecommunications

Decommissioning of the TAT-14 submarine cable

on Wednesday, 12 May 2021 Posted in Archives Rezopole

Decommissioning of the TAT-14 submarine cable

The TAT-14 telecommunications cable, which consists of two 19-year-old cables, is being decommissioned. This operation, carried out by Subsea Environmental Services, involves the recovery and recycling of the cable and bases, from land to deep water segments in the North Atlantic.
The first phase started in mid-April and will be completed by the end of 2021. It only concerns the onshore part, with the recovery of the coastal ends in Denmark and the Netherlands, but this work is not necessarily the easiest...

More than a year of planning has been required to consider the interests of multiple stakeholders in licensing, borders and jurisdictions, constructed buildings, crossings, and considerations of proximity to third party assets in various countries.

While the experiment is not new, it is being closely followed by the entire submarine cable community. It should allow for the identification of risks, analysis and implementation of necessary mitigations, while maintaining operations within a tight project schedule. Careful consideration of the project's impact on waste, environmental factors and opportunities to reuse portions are also examined.

Connecting Northern Europe directly to North America, TAT-14 has been replaced by the new Havfrue / AEC-2 cable since last month. This cable connects Denmark and Norway to the US, with a future extension planned for Ireland.

 

 

 Read the article

 

Source : Datacenter Magazine

 

 

 

 

Plan of attack for the revival of Kosc

on Friday, 16 October 2020 Posted in Archives Rezopole

Plan of attack for the revival of Kosc

The wholesale operator, which took control of Kosc in the summer of 2020, is now preparing to relaunch it. And Kosc's rebound is bound to be closely scrutinised by the various players in the sector.

 

David El Fassy, the CEO of Altitude Infrastructure - now renamed Altitude Infra, explains, "For us, the acquisition of Kosc is an unprecedented opportunity to expand our client base in areas other than those where we have traditionally operated, particularly in AMII or urban areas. [...] After beating Kosc's order record in September, we now wish to enrich its catalogue of addressable FttE and FttO products, on which Kosc has not had a strong presence until now". Other objectives include the development of Kosc's coverage in SFR's AMII zones, with the eventual ambition to push for full unbundling of the wholesale operator.

 

Altitude Infra wants to make Kosc's API the most complete aggregator of telecommunications infrastructures, both for its major accounts (such as OVH) and also for VSEs. Indeed, the latter constitute the most important economic development basin of the corporate telecoms market.

To achieve this, the wholesale operator is planning a massive investment of 100 million euros over five years in Kosc. Xavier Grossetete, who has been working for Jaguar Network since 2017, has been appointed sales director and will be responsible for boosting the recruitment of new customers.

 

"With Kosc, we are becoming the operators' one-stop shop, with coverage throughout the country," says David El Fassy, confirming his intention "to invest and have a long-term influence on the fibre optics market, but also to develop new offers and services for companies". The plan proposed by Altitude Infra should enable Kosc to return to a positive Ebitda, as well as a turnover of between 80 and 100 million euros in 2022.

 

 

 Read the article

 

Source : ZDNet

 

 

 

 

SFR condemned: no more doubt between cable and fibre

on Friday, 16 October 2020 Posted in Archives Rezopole

SFR condemned: no more doubt between cable and fibre

On October 8th, the Paris Court of Appeal ordered SFR to send a letter to certain subscribers informing them that they can unilaterally terminate their fixed Internet access contract. Capital tells us that if the operator resists, it will have to pay 500,000 euros for each day of delay.

 

This legal procedure was initiated in January 2018 by its competitor Free. Indeed, although a decree has regulated the use of the word fibre since 2016, SFR has continued to maintain a certain vagueness in its commercial offers.

It is also accused of using the term FttB (Fiber to the Building) since, in some cases, its fiber does not go all the way down to the bottom of the building but only into a street cabinet.

 

Today SFR claims to have 3.1 million end-to-end fibre optic customers (FttH) and 13.8 million lines eligible for Very High Speed broadband.

 

 

 Read the article

 

Source : 01net

 

 

 

 

Repurchase of SFR: Altice released from its commitments

on Thursday, 07 November 2019 Posted in Archives Rezopole

Repurchase of SFR: Altice released from its commitments

When SFR was acquired by Numéricable in 2014, the parent company, Altice, made a number of commitments to the French Competition Authority in order to better promote this concentration in the telecoms sector. These commitments, which were entered into for a period of five years, should no longer be maintained, the gendarme said at the end of this period, on 28 October. With one exception: the agreement to co-develop the fibre in very dense areas concluded with Bouygues before the acquisition.

 

The French Competition Authority has therefore released Altice from several of its commitments concerning:

  • the obligation to open the cable network to other operators, and not to use the information available to Altice to deploy its fibre network.
  • the prohibition on offering cable offers in La Poste branches with which SFR had a distribution agreement.
  • the maintenance of dark fibre (FON) or dedicated optical local loop (BLOD) offers "at least as advantageous as before the operation".

 

On the other hand, the competition police officer was more picky about the Faber contract concluded between SFR and Bouygues Telecom in 2010. A co-delivery agreement for the horizontal fibre optic network in 22 cities located in very dense areas (including Paris). Especially since Altice was called to order in 2017 because of "particularly serious breaches" of the execution of this contract. 40 million fine and injunctions to comply with deployment commitments co-financed by Bouygues Telecom.

The Authority decided to lift part of the injunctions: those, without penalty, requiring Altice to connect the buildings concerned by the agreement as from the 2017 decision. The competition police officer considers that Altice's interests are now "aligned with those of Bouygues Telecom" within the scope of the Faber contract. The parent company now favours FttH.

On the other hand, the injunctions under penalty payments for the stock of buildings that were to be fibrated before 2017 are maintained. The Authority is examining the progress of Patrick Drahi's group to determine whether it should also be released from these commitments. Its conclusions will be issued "in the first half of 2020".

 

 

 

 Read the article

 

Source : DegroupNews

 

 

 

 

Bouygues Telecom lands in the AMII zone

on Wednesday, 16 October 2019 Posted in Archives Rezopole

Bouygues Telecom lands in the AMII zone

The operator has launched the marketing of its Very High Speed subscriptions, up to 1 Gb/s, in many cities. To do so, it relied on SFR's FttH network. These are AMII zones, moderately dense zones, where the red square operator is the only one to manoeuvre. It installs a shared optical fibre network there, which other ISPs will then be able to use.


More than 50 cities in some 15 departments are affected by the arrival of Bouygues Telecom's offers. The operator is thus following in Free's footsteps, which has been investing in these territories for several months now.

Bouygues Telecom, which has not been present so far, seems to have launched a vast marketing effort since the end of September. In particular on the outskirts of major cities such as Calais, Cannes, Marignane, Nantes, Toulon, Toulouse and Orléans as well as in several major municipalities in the Ile-de-France region.


In these regions, competition will therefore be somewhat fiercer since at the beginning of the year only SFR, RED, Orange and Sosh offers were available. For several months now, Free has been growing in power, so it is not surprising to see Bouygues Telecom complete the picture. This is to keep pace with these territories with hundreds of thousands of potential customers.


At the same time, Bouygues Telecom is whipping up new ground in major cities. At the beginning of 2019, its very high speed Internet offers were still absent from many large cities located in so-called very dense areas (ZTD). But the situation is gradually improving with the arrival of its fibre in Cannes, Clermont-Ferrand, Grenoble, Poitiers, Rennes, Rouen, Saint-Etienne, Toulon or even some Ile-de-France municipalities such as very recently Fontenay-sous-Bois.

 

 

 

 Read the article

 

Source : Ariase

 

 

 

 

Exhaustion of IPv4 addresses is now a reality

on Thursday, 10 October 2019 Posted in Archives Rezopole

Exhaustion of IPv4 addresses is now a reality

Arcep still estimated, before the summer holidays, that the number of public IPv4 addresses available would allow it to last until March 2020. But since then, requests for allocations have multiplied and the remaining stock is melting like snow in the sun. The exhaustion date is now scheduled.... November 5th, 2019.

 

After this date, the European RIPE register will switch to a strict rationing mode. Organizations wishing to provide themselves will therefore have to register on the waiting list. If so, they will receive a small range of 256 addresses. For those who already have address ranges, they have almost no chance of receiving this boost. "We will focus on players who have not yet received an IPv4 address allocation," warns Marco Schmidt, head of rule development and internal policy at RIPE.

 

These addresses will mainly come from companies in bankruptcy. Historical actors who have received a large allocation in the past and who no longer use certain beaches can obviously return them to RIPE. But this case will be quite rare. "IPv4 addresses have become strategic assets. Almost no one will want to part with it," says Vincentus Grinius, CEO of Heficed.

The number of IP address transfers is not expected to increase significantly in the future for the same reasons as seen above. However, the price of the IPv4 address could increase significantly as the offer becomes scarcer. There are currently about twenty bids at the global level on the auction site auctions.ipv4.global. The average purchase price more than doubled from $9 to $21 in three years.

 

This shortage is already inspiring fraudulent minds who are on the lookout to recover stocks of IPv4 addresses. In recent years, a few hundred cases have already landed on the RIPE offices.
RIPE has therefore strengthened its controls to remedy this situation. More than 600 surveys, twice as many as the previous year, were conducted in 2018. Members are now asked to check regularly that their data is correct and up to date.

 

However, this will not solve the fundamental problem of shortage. Today, no telecom player can ignore IPv4. Even if IPv6 is developing, this technology only connects about a quarter of the Web. "The Internet will not stop working, but it will stop growing. This shortage will especially affect new entrants and growing players, as they are the ones who need new public IPv4 addresses the most. Either they manage to obtain them on the secondary market, or they will have to share IPv4 addresses with several customers," explains Vivien Guéant, project manager in Arcep's "Open Internet" unit.

 

This situation is far from neutral for the end user as it affects the quality of service. Indeed, when an operator retrieves IPv4 addresses from an actor located in another country or continent, it may happen that this geographical information is not updated.

Address sharing also has shortcomings since it allows several hundred or even thousands of clients to be connected to a single IPv4 address. And this significantly complicates maintenance for the operator and makes it difficult, if not impossible, to use certain applications "such as peer-to-peer, remote access to shared files on a NAS, access to connected home control systems, certain network games", explains Arcep in its "Monitoring the exhaustion of IPv4 addresses".

The police also suffer from this forced sharing. Investigations will be difficult to complete if addresses are increasingly shared, as it often relies on an IP address to find a digital offender. To overcome this situation, European police forces would like operators and ISPs to reduce the number of customers shared per IPv4 address. In Belgium, for example, the telecoms industry has played the game and the introduction of a code of conduct has made it possible to limit the subscriber ratio to 16:1.

 

The only long-term solution is the widespread use of IPv6. "Industry players have never seen much interest in IPv6, as this technology had no immediate effects: all websites and customers that have IPv6 also have IPv4. IPv6 is only useful if everyone gets involved. IPv4 will probably have to be kept for a long time to come. Some even think that IPv4 will never stop," adds Vivien Guéant. Unless we do like Belarus, which has just issued a presidential decree requiring these ISPs to deploy IPv6 to all users by 1 January 2020. To date, it is the only country to force the deployment of IPv6 through legislation.

 

 

 

 Read the article

 

Source : 01net

 

 

 

 

Arcep unveils 5G projects in the 26 GHz band

on Thursday, 10 October 2019 Posted in Archives Rezopole

Arcep unveils 5G projects in the 26 GHz band

On October 7th, Arcep announced the first projects selected to use the 26 GHz frequency band. Called "millimetre band", according to the regulator, this band represents "an extremely localized capacitive contribution for very high speed mobile networks in very dense areas, mainly in urban or suburban areas, in specific locations (ports, factories...) or inside buildings".

 

The regulator and the government issued a call for projects in January 2019 to identify the uses of 5G in this frequency band. In total, 11 projects have been validated by the authorities to test 5G on the 26 GHz band for 3 years. Sébastien Soriano explains "the fundamental challenge is the Internet of things, an almost infinite universe is opening up to us".

 

Heterogeneous proposals:

  • the major seaport of Le Havre is seeking to develop the port city of tomorrow.
  • Bordeaux Metropole will use the 5G to manage the connected streetlights and thus ensure intelligent energy management within the municipalities concerned.
  • With a view to the 2024 Olympic Games, the Saint-Quentin en Yvelines national velodrome will be able to test 5G for the media.
  • SNCF will be able to observe the benefits of 5G in Rennes station with different cases of use affecting both users and SNCF agents.

 

 

 

 Read the article

 

Source : Le Monde Informatique

 

 

 

 

RezoGirls in the spotlight!

on Monday, 07 October 2019 Posted in Archives Rezopole

RezoGirls in the spotlight!

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wi-Fi 6 seeks to win against 5G

on Monday, 07 October 2019 Posted in Archives Rezopole

Wi-Fi 6 seeks to win against 5G

Launched on September 16, Wi-Fi 6 will become widespread in the Telecom sector. Indeed, according to the Wi-Fi Alliance, more than 1.6 billion devices will offer it by the end of 2020. "This is the first time in the history of Wi-Fi that we're going to see so much progress. The impact of Wi-Fi often goes unnoticed. Yet even international trade depends on it! Wi-Fi 6 is there, it's a reality, companies deliver their products," enthuses Kevin Robinson, Wifi-Alliance's Vice President of Marketing.

 

The next mobile phone standard, 5G, is planned for 2020 in France. Telecoms operators will first have to buy the valuable licenses this fall. However, using free frequencies, Wi-Fi 6 was able to arrive this summer in France.

This version 6 has many advantages. It allows dozens of devices to be connected simultaneously. "Today, in an average family of four people, there are at least four phones on the same Wi-Fi, not to mention business smartphones, tablets, one or more PCs, a connected TV... We see that the number of devices per household is increasing faster than the speed consumed," explains Christian Gacon, director of fixed networks at Orange Labs.

But 5G should not relieve the problem. 5G uses high frequency bands, compared to 4G, which allow broadcasting further away but penetrate less well inside buildings. For this reason, 5G will be used mainly outdoors and Wi-Fi 6 indoors. "These are two complementary technologies. For example, Wi-Fi 6 will not allow the development of autonomous cars!" says Kevin Robinson. In the industrial world, 5G will therefore be essential for uses requiring very low latency and long range. Wi-Fi 6 is more suitable for short-range uses.

 

But others are more measured. "Wi-Fi 5 is already very powerful and will support the next ten years. Wi-Fi 6 is for the next twenty years. It brings an improvement... From my point of view, the real breakthrough came with Wi-Fi 5," says Marc Taieb, president and founder of Wifirst.

 

 

 Read the article

 

Source : Les Echos

 

 

 

 

IPv6 mandatory for Belarusian ISPs

on Friday, 27 September 2019 Posted in Archives Rezopole, Archives GrenoblIX, Archives LyonIX

IPv6 mandatory for Belarusian ISPs

Belarus becomes the first country in the world to legally require the adoption of IPv6. As of January 1, 2020, all Internet Service Providers will be required to support IPv6 on their network and provide an IPv6 address to all their customers.

 

The new law was promulgated by presidential decree on 18 September. This decree updates the previous one setting out the rules for using the country's "national Internet segment". Belarus has one of the newest and most modern Internet backbones on the European continent and local ISPs have already tested IPv6 support well before last week's announcement.

 

Currently, IPv6 adoption in Belarus is about 15% on average, below the global average (29%). But this is expected to increase from 2020 onwards, as local ISPs will have to support all connections.

Once enabled, clients will be assigned both an IPv4 Internet address and an IPv6 address, and connections will run fully on IPv6 if possible.

 

Officially approved as the Internet standard in 2017, IPv6 was designed to replace IPv4, which has almost exhausted its available address space of 4.3 billion addresses. Since its adoption, ISPs around the world have begun to deploy support, in collaboration with consumer and professional device manufacturers. A rather slow deployment, mainly because it was left to the discretion of the operators.
 

 

 

 Read the article

 

Source : ZDNet

 

 

 

 

Kosc counter-attacks before the Council of State

on Friday, 13 September 2019 Posted in Archives Rezopole, Archives GrenoblIX, Archives LyonIX

Kosc counter-attacks before the Council of State

Kosc was unsuccessful against Altice and contested the decision taken by the Competition Authority. Indeed, seized on the occasion of the sale of Completel's copper network, the competition police last week issued its verdict: "there is nothing to define that Altice has committed a fault with regard to its obligations".

 

This is a major blow for the wholesale provider of telecom services to operators in the enterprise market, which has been denouncing SFR's parent company's late deliveries for months. This decision is all the more difficult to accept as its financial equation has become significantly more complicated.

 

But the operator does not intend to stop there since he "rejects", in a press release, the verdict of the Competition Authority and announces that he will bring the case before the Conseil d'État. A referral "motivated by the numerous irregularities that have marked the follow-up of the case by the Competition Authority, including the unexplained duration of its investigation in a context of urgency and the probable violation of its secrecy".

In addition, the company believes that the abandonment of Banque des Territoires (Caisse des Dépôts group), one of its main supporters, can only be explained by an understanding of the result favourable to Altice - SFR upstream.

 

Kosc warns against a prospect of consolidation that it now considers itself the "privileged target of a hostile acquisition" in view of its financial fragility. An operation that would "de facto close the business telecommunications market to the detriment not only of the ecosystem of hundreds of digital business service operators but also of the beginning of catching up on the digitalisation backlog of French SMEs and VSEs", warns the operator.

 

 

 

 

 Read the article

 

Source : DegroupNews

 

 

 

 

Arcep : Orange "attacks the French regulatory model".

on Friday, 13 September 2019 Posted in Archives Rezopole, Archives GrenoblIX, Archives LyonIX

Arcep : Orange

In its newsletter on Monday, the Arcep college published an editorial to review the implications of a recent picket by the incumbent operator. Indeed, at the end of the summer, Orange submitted a Priority Question of Constitutionality (QPC) to the Conseil d'Etat in order to challenge the telecoms regulator's power to impose sanctions. But according to the college, Orange "[challenges] the pragmatic spirit of French-style regulation". With this initiative, the incumbent operator "does not attack the Arcep so much but attacks the French regulatory model more broadly", says Sébastien Soriano, President of the Arcep.

 

The sanctioning power of the Arcep is vital for the proper functioning of the current regulation, the college stresses in its editorial. In particular, it would not be possible to benefit from "the commitments that operators can make on competitive or territorial coverage issues", argues the telecoms police officer. "Without control and sanctions, these commitments would only be paper," he insists.

 

Very upset by the initiative of the incumbent operator, Sébastien Soriano said "I am not sure that Orange has measured all the consequences". The President of Arcep says that if his power of sanction were to disappear, then France would have to choose another regulatory model. Wishing to take advantage of the "synergy between infrastructures and services", it decided to leave the incumbent operator in charge of its network for its deployments.

Sébastien Soriano explains "We felt that Orange, because of its need to win back customers in the fixed Internet, had an incentive to invest in fibre", seeing it as a "positive market dynamic. But the counterpart of this choice is that the regulator must check on a daily basis that Orange is not taking advantage of this situation by giving itself an advantage on the retail market. This is called non-discrimination. To ensure this, regular monitoring and sanction procedures are required. Without them, we would potentially be forced to choose much more radical regulatory approaches..."

And ends by correcting: "It's not a threat, it's factual".

 

 

 

 

 Read the article

 

Source : La Tribune

 

 

 

 

The "small" operators are attacking Orange

on Friday, 26 July 2019 Posted in Archives Rezopole, Archives GrenoblIX, Archives LyonIX

The

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.

 

 

 

 

 Read the article

 

Source : Les Echos

 

 

 

 

 

Arcep: Open Internet

on Thursday, 11 July 2019 Posted in Archives Rezopole, Archives GrenoblIX, Archives LyonIX

Arcep: Open Internet

The Autorité de Régulation des Communications Électroniques et des Postes is publishing the 2019 edition of its Internet Health Check in France. Submitted to Parliament, this report highlights the actions taken to ensure the openness of the Internet, looks at potential threats and presents the regulator's action to contain them.

 

The balance sheet in brief!

 

1- Quality of services
The service comparators are so inhomogeneous today that the Arcep wanted to improve them by setting up an API in the boxes containing the "access identity card" of each terminal. This will allow a much better diagnosis with reliable information on the parameters of each measurement. This API is complemented by a code of conduct. Gradually adopted by the measurement stakeholders, it makes it possible to improve the reliability, transparency and readability of the results.

 

2- Data interconnection
In constant evolution, this ecosystem can be the site of occasional tensions. The Arcep is vigilant in monitoring the market. It publishes data from its information collection in its annual barometer of interconnection in France. When the situation requires it, the Arcep can also become a "gendarme" and settle disputes between the actors.

 

3- Transition to IPV6
The end of IPV4 is now scheduled for June 2020. Operators' planned deployments of IPV6 may not be able to address the shortage of IPV4 addresses. Therefore, Arcep will organise the first working meeting of the "IPV6 Task Force" in the second half of 2019. These meetings will aim to accelerate the transition to IPV6 in France by sharing the experiences of the different actors and defining actions to be implemented

 

4- Net neutrality
The guidelines for the implementation of the principle of net neutrality by national regulators have generally proved their worth. The country has a positive balance sheet. However, Arcep ensures that access providers continue to adjust their practices in line with the European regulatory framework.

 

5- Opening of terminals
If in terms of net neutrality, the Arcep can exercise its protection on networks there is a weak link: terminals. Adopted at the beginning of this year, the European "Platform-to-business" regulation brings more transparency on the practices of online platforms towards their corporate clients. However, this regulation does not yet ensure the neutrality of terminals. Arcep made 11 concrete proposals to ensure an "end-to-end" open Internet in a report on the issue in February 2018.


 

 

 Read the report

 

Source : Arcep

 

 

 

 

When will the white zones end?

on Tuesday, 14 August 2018 Posted in Archives Rezopole, Archives GrenoblIX, Archives LyonIX

When will the white zones end?

Among more than 35,000 municipalities in France, 541 still have no access to the Internet, even though it is now a necessity. The government has therefore set itself the goal of "getting rid of these white areas" by announcing broadband and very high speed access for all by 2022. Things seem to be moving in this direction with the "new mobile deal" concluded between the State and ARCEP to accelerate mobile coverage of territories or the compromise between SFR and Orange on the development of fibre in less dense areas.

Arnaud Bousquet proposes to review this digital divide in the 31th July radio programme Le téléphone sonne on France Inter. To answer the Internet question, mobile telephony: when will the white zones end? he receives Martine Lombard, member of the ARCEP college, Michel Combot, Director General of the Fédération Française des Télécoms and Sébastien Dufromentel, secretary of the Fédération FDN.

 

 

Listen to the show

 

 

The white zone concept only concerned mobile telephony and currently represents only 1% of the territory. Today, it also includes Internet access. To enable everyone to access this technology, more than 20 billion euros will be invested in the France Très Haut Débit plan.

For most people in these dense areas, it is not a choice not to use the Internet, it is a technical impossibility. The testimonies of various listeners from the Lot, the Hérault or even the Loire-et-Cher are quite appalling. Some have to travel several kilometres to have an Internet connection or pay a monthly subscription but only manage to connect once a week. Others, a little luckier, have an ADSL connection but very low and must therefore invest in additional equipment with a very irregular speed. The elected representatives also call on the operators to improve this connectivity wherever we go, work or live. However, there are other ways to connect like 4G, 5G or radio bridges. These transition technologies are deployed by the operators while waiting for the optical fiber.

If at the beginning of the 2000s, France had no delay for the deployment of ADSL, the same cannot be said for very high speed broadband. One of the reasons is that the major operators have prioritised their infrastructures at the expense of FTTH (fibre to the subscriber's home). Regulatory requirement is another such factor. However, France remains globally ahead in terms of optical fiber in Europe thanks to its investments over the last ten years.

Technical questions arise for the integral fibering of the population. In France, 40% of households do not have an address or number, although a house numbering plan is required for each commune. This plan speeds up the fibering process and limits the risk of errors during the optical fibre connection.

However, white areas are not limited to rural areas. Connecting to the Internet remains difficult or even impossible on public transport or rail networks. The equipment and coverage of the transport axes is an important point of the January agreement between the government and the operators. One of the objectives set is to cover 90% of the regional rail network in 4G by 2025.

This raises the question of equipment priority setting. Why do we choose to equip a city that already has 4G with optical fibre rather than a city where there is no Internet access? It is the local authorities that are supposed to define the priorities. But most local authorities, via the Public Initiative Networks, let the commercial operator decide which areas to equip. The economic development of the regions now depends on the development of the territory in digital infrastructures to be able to work and develop its trade.

This "digital new deal" is an important government commitment. The State is making efforts and is thus renouncing the financial auction of frequency allocations, i.e. around 3 billion euros. But in return, operators commit to invest these sums, or even more, in improving the mobile network with general commitments: transform all 3G sites into 4G, cover 55,000 km of road network by the end of 2020, create 5,000 sites each with mutualization to fundamentally remedy the mobile disparity.

A listener from Deux-Sèvres raises the question of the network's obsolescence. In rural areas, most subscribers have access to the Internet via ADSL via the telephone network installed over 40 years ago. However, the use of this network has its limits since the flow decreases with distance. Optical fibre is particularly suitable for these areas since the throughput remains the same whatever the distance. The choice of this technology is therefore justified, but it is still necessary to find the investments to deploy it. It is also necessary that the operators who lay the fibre do not keep it for their own profit. Indeed, this would lead to foreclosure for small ISPs and only large operators could operate.

The removal of these white areas can pose a problem for so-called electro-hypersensitive people since they are currently refuge areas. But how to face these contradictory wills because if certain people refuse Internet by principle or because of their health, it is a very strong stake in particular against the rural desertification of the youngest.

The digital divide can also be transposed to Overseas France. For example, in French Guiana less than 7% of the territory is covered by 4G. Only the coastal areas have good coverage, the rest of the department has no 4G access but these areas have a low human density. Investment efforts have been made by local authorities and operators in Overseas France, but more remains to be done, particularly in French Guiana.

 

 

Listen to the show

 

Source : France Inter

 

 

FaLang translation system by Faboba