It is clear that white areas are not limited to rural deserts. They also concern tourist areas that are very popular in the summer with cyclists, hikers and coastal travellers.

In the Luberon, if optical fibre has arrived in Isle sur la Sorgue or Maubec, ADSL is particularly anaemic in Gordes, and 4G is almost absent. The various local players are suffering from the disinvestment of the main operators and the public authorities. The latter are struggling to impose a minimum service for services that are now essential at a time when administrative procedures are being dematerialised.

If digital technology is on everyone's lips today, once you leave the urban areas, you are in digital poverty with a two-speed France.

In a report published on 16 January 2020, the former rights defender Jacques Toubon stated that "in municipalities with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants, more than a third of the inhabitants do not have access to quality Internet, which represents nearly 75% of municipalities in France and 15% of the population". Fortunately, alternative Internet service providers and digital development companies are helping rural communities. They are setting up small-scale radio networks accessible to individuals and small businesses. These are essential local initiatives, as the France Très Haut Débit plan, launched in 2013, and the New Deal Mobile, launched in 2018, are struggling to eradicate the digital divide and ensure equal access to the Internet for all French people.

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Source : Le Monde Informatique

On 2 September, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled in two German cases concerning "zero tariff" offers by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The Court ruled that this practice is contrary to the EU regulation on open Internet access, for the second time in a year.

A "zero tariff" is the practice of an ISP to make free the volume of data consumed via a partner application.

In this case the CJEU points to the additional option, Stream On, offered by Telekom Deutschland to its users. Vodafone, on the other hand, offers a myriad of options under the name Vodafone Pass, which are only valid in Germany. The data consumed by the applications concerned are only taken into account when they are consumed from abroad.

Maryant Fernández Pérez, head of digital policy at the European consumer protection organisation BEUC said "When companies like Vodafone use these zero tariffs, they are essentially locking consumers in and limiting what the internet can offer them,. "Zero tariffs" are detrimental to consumer choice, competition, innovation, media diversity and freedom of information".

It also welcomed the Court's ruling that "such a commercial practice is contrary to the general obligation of equal treatment of traffic, without discrimination or interference, as required by the Open Internet Access Regulation".

The German Federal Network Agency, which filed the complaint together with a consumer association, believes that the offers "cannot be maintained in their current form". Vodafone Germany said it is "carefully examining the decisions and will update its current offer if necessary in accordance with the judgments".

The ruling is based on the EU net neutrality regulation, which was passed in 2015 and came into force in 2016. The text was criticised at the time for its weakness. The US Federal Communication Commission had taken a much stronger measure on the same subject the year of the European vote, clearly prohibiting "zero rating".

Since then, the situation has ironically been reversed. The Trump administration repealed the net neutrality measure, which his successor is trying to reinstate. In Europe, the CJEU clarified its position in September 2020 via its ruling on the offers of the operator Telenor. A decision confirmed today.

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Source : Siècle Digital

The latest quarterly figures published by Arcep confirm the growth of optical fibre in France: "the fourth quarter of 2020 was marked by record growth in fibre optic deployment (FttH) and its adoption, which concludes another record year in 2020". The 10 million subscriptions to FttH offers have now passed the 10 million mark.

The number of very high-speed broadband subscriptions now stands at 14.7 million. This represents nearly half of the total number of Internet subscriptions in France, and 51% of the number of premises eligible for very high-speed broadband, an increase of 3 points in one year.

This growth is primarily due to the increase in FttH subscriptions. With 3.3 million additional accesses in 2020, the number of FttH subscriptions is estimated at 10.4 million, or 70% of the total number of very high-speed accesses. Although broadband subscriptions still make up the majority of Internet subscriptions, with almost 16 million, they have dropped by 2.5 million in 2020.

In total, at the end of 2020, France had 30.6 million broadband and very high-speed subscriptions. This represents an increase of 285,000 in one quarter and 800,000 in one year (+2.7%). "Such annual growth has not been observed for three years," according to estimates from Arcep.

A trend that owes much to the sustained deployment of end-to-end fiber optic lines by operators and players in the sector. More than 1.9 million additional premises were made connectable to FttH during the fourth quarter of 2020. "More than 5.8 million lines were deployed in 2020, despite the health situation, 19% more than in 2019," said the telecoms policeman.

Now, 24.2 million premises are eligible for FttH offers, an increase of 31% in one year. Most of this growth is located in medium-density areas - the AMII zone (Appel à Manifestation d'Intention d'Investissement). At the end of the fourth quarter of 2020, a total of 28.6 million premises were eligible for very high-speed broadband services, all technologies combined, including 21.7 million outside very dense areas.

While fiber deployment is progressing well, many homes and businesses are complaining about connectivity at half-mast. This is due to faulty maintenance or connections at sharing points, which generate numerous quality-of-service problems.
To remedy this, the operators have just concluded an agreement that could be a milestone in the sector. They are committed to improving the safety and quality of interventions with a new system of penalties.

The agreement, announced by Infranum, also provides for the collective assumption of the costs of restoring the network. This will slow down the explosion of "noodle dishes" overflowing the pooling points, which could eventually pose a major problem for the connectivity of individuals and professionals.

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Source : ZDNet

InfraNum has just announced "a major agreement between operators to improve the quality of connections and guarantee the durability of fiber networks in France". The quality of the operations of connection to the optical fiber is currently under fire, the federation of digital infrastructure manufacturers is trying to reassure. A framework has therefore been put in place and will be set out in numerous agreements between access providers and network operators... some of which have yet to be signed.

For 18 months, infrastructure operators (RO) and commercial operators (CO) have been working together to draw up these new Stoc contracts (for commercial operator subcontracting). The aim is to improve an operating mode that everyone is keen to maintain: the Internet access provider (OC) connects its subscriber, as a subcontractor of the network operator (RO).

Indeed, in the face of the influx of demand, its defenders argue that this is the most efficient way to operate in order to make things happen quickly. But not to do well, retort the detractors of the Stoc mode denouncing degradation, connection failures or access cuts.

The Stoc mode is therefore striving to make its transformation, "to improve the quality and safety of interventions, the processes and speed of connection, and the training of those involved". InfraNum therefore announces that discussions between network operators and ISPs have led to progress in three areas:

• "Improving the safety and quality of interventions", with in particular the "realization of joint audits and the introduction of sanctions that can go as far as the exclusion of a subcontractor in case of contractual failure".
• "Increase transparency" through a system for monitoring interventions and "control by an artificial intelligence system" on the side of the network operator".
• "Rebalancing maintenance costs: between ROs and COs, collective coverage of network restoration costs, according to a distribution key approved by the Arcep".

While the industry federation assures that "the first signatures have already taken place for rapid generalization and immediate implementation," it concedes, however, that this "new contractual framework" has not yet been fully deployed.

For example, network operators Axione and Altitude Infra have signed "with the majority of OCs", while things are "on the right track" for TDF. On the other hand, there is nothing on the progress of discussions with Orange and SFR, which have the particularity of being both commercial operators and network operators, particularly in public and private initiative zones.

A little more patience therefore before this new major agreement is implemented in unison on all networks and between all operators and ISPs. The interest for stakeholders is that it "avoids imposing a regulatory decision". The Arcep is currently conducting a consultation on the subject.

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Source : DegroupTest

The fixed market regulation project concocted by the Arcep, already approved by the Competition Authority, has also just been endorsed by Brussels. Composed of two parts, it specifically concerns Orange for one part and all the players for the other.

One of the main objectives is to encourage Orange to put an end to copper and therefore to ADSL as quickly as possible so that it is not tempted to prolong the "rent" of the copper network. The incumbent operator will thus no longer have the right to open new copper access in buildings where the four major players are present in fiber optics. It will also have to more easily connect businesses and homes far from its network on demand, in order to fill the holes in the coverage racket and increase the rate of FttH adoption.

The telecom policeman has set another goal to contain Orange's dominance in the enterprise market. Indeed, all ISPs using its shared fiber to offer commercial offers to individuals will now also be able to do so for businesses.

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Source : 01Net

Over the past two or three years, the acceleration in fiber deployment has been clear, but the hardest part remains to be done: connecting the least dense areas of the territory. Despite the government's efforts - generalization of fiber by 2025 by mobilizing nearly 300 million euros to support the latest projects not yet funded - the account is not there. The reason: to serve scattered housing or isolated businesses, the cost of so-called long connections is very high and for some, it may even be prohibitive.

The answer must emerge from "negotiations with the various local authorities on the financing of their projects, with major demands that may not be able to be met exactly," explains Cédric O. Indeed, the Secretary of State wants "to match needs and subsidies to achieve the goal of 100% fiber in 2025. For the specifications, we'll see afterwards".

Non-standard connections are also available in less dense areas of private initiative. The question of the effective availability of fiber arises for homes and businesses that are isolated and/or difficult to serve. This is the case in the AMII zone, where Orange and SFR's commitment was to make 100% of premises connectable by the end of 2020. Including 8% on request because they are considered more complex to serve or not a priority.

If the health crisis has pushed back the deadline for these commitments, they will finally be reached in 2021 according to Nicolas Guérin, Secretary General of the French Federation of Telecoms. For Arcep, it is the responsibility of the State to ensure this. For Sébastien Soriano, President of the Regulatory Authority, "no worries" about SFR's compliance with the deadlines. However, he believes that there is "a landing point to be built with Orange".

A common ground could be found on the launch of offers for premises that can be connected on demand. This would enable a little over one million homes and businesses "set aside" during the initial deployment schedule to be connected within six months of the order being placed with an access provider. Nicolas Guérin, also Orange's General Secretary, explains that after having made massive deployment, the incumbent operator is now able to "move to a more qualitative deployment".

On the Arcep side, where "procedures are under way" to gauge operators' compliance with completeness rules, we are waiting to see if these offers will enable us to respond to the problems identified. In any case, Sébastien Soriano considers it desirable that these on-demand connection offers should first arrive in areas that have been scheduled for more than five years - and sometimes much longer - and where 100% of the premises are not yet connectable.

The question of the durability of the FttH networks also arises, particularly concerning the connection in Stoc mode. Access providers want to connect their customers themselves. While network operators are not against this, they are concerned about connection failures and the damage this causes. Both parties are not desperate to find new agreements before the end of the year, in order to clarify the responsibilities of each party.

All of this is under the watchful eye of the communities that own the public-initiative networks. If it is not surprising to hear elected officials thundering against the Stoc mode; it is more surprising to see a member of the government raising his voice on this very operational issue. "It's not possible," Cédric O. hammered out, "We are in the process of ruining what we are achieving" by strongly encouraging those concerned to solve the problem: "Either we know how to solve it intelligently between people of good will, or the State will have to make more complicated decisions, even if it means causing inconveniences in the system".

Stakeholders therefore no longer seem to have much leeway to save the Stoc mode. And to achieve this, the representative federations - InfraNum for the networks, the FTT for the operators - need to get around the table, thus pleading the case of several players in the ecosystem. This is also the opinion of Benoît Loutrel, commissioned by the French Secretary of State for the Digital Economy to study "securing the deployment and operating conditions for FttH networks". His task will be to re-examine the France THD program. The report he will produce in a year's time will "not be intended to put pressure on this or that actor, but rather to problematize and find a method", warns the interested party. It will propose ways to "transfer learning feedback" between territories, to "organize the interplay between public authorities and industry", and finally to "anticipate the resilience of networks".

On this last point, while burying is a common sense choice in the West Indies, it is no less relevant in metropolitan France.Climate risks also weigh on an air deployment that is anything but marginal, argues the Bank of the Territories. As part of its recovery plan, it plans to allocate additional resources to support local authorities in their landfill projects and secure access to major network sites. To this end, a call for projects will be launched in 2021.

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Source : DegroupTest

To ensure the quality of fiber deployment, the government will launch a mission to monitor FttH deployments.

The most visible aspect of the degradation of the state of fiber networks is in some street cabinets. The model of entrusting the connection of subscribers to Internet service providers, in a relationship of subcontracting to network operators, is regularly blamed for these setbacks. And the various protagonists are still struggling to come to an agreement to put an end to the mess.

Some observers also point to the original choice to move the points of pooling as close as possible to residential or professional premises, to the detriment of a more centralized and therefore more secure architecture.

But beyond the state of the cabinets, the upstream part is also in the sights of this major control operation that the government intends to launch.

Indeed, the initiative is based on a set of alerts, notably concerning the undersizing of transport cables. In some places, the amount of lightpaths available would be insufficient to serve all users.

There are also concerns about imported fibre optics, which do not appear to be fully satisfactory.

The vulnerability of fibre networks to climatic hazards also explains this renewed vigilance.

The objective stated in the mission letter of this monitoring operation: "to better secure deployments and operating conditions on public-initiative networks" (RIP). And to find "remedies" for potential problems identified.

Fiber networks deployed by operators using their own funds, in very dense areas or in less dense areas of private initiative (AMII in particular), would therefore be excluded from the scope of this monitoring mission.

Will it be a matter of leaving it up to the operators to ensure the proper functioning of their own network, while the State would only do so on RIPs, where public funds have been committed?

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Source : DegroupTest

On August 30th, the U.S. Internet service provider CenturyLink suffered a major technical failure. A misconfiguration in one of its data centers caused damage to the entire Internet network.

Involving both a firewall and BGP routing, this technical failure spread outside CenturyLink's network. This error also affected other Internet Service Providers (ISPs), ultimately causing connectivity problems for many other companies.

The technology giants whose services were disrupted include Amazon, Twitter, Microsoft (Xbox Live), EA, Blizzard, Steam, Discord, Reddit, Hulu, Duo Security, Imperva, NameCheap, OpenDNS, and many others.

Also severely affected, Cloudflare said that CenturyLink's outbound spread problem has resulted in a 3.5 percent drop in global Internet traffic. This would make it one of the largest Internet outages ever recorded.

According to CenturyLink's status page, the problem originated at its data center in Mississauga, a city near Toronto, Canada.

The ISP says the root cause of the incident is an incorrect Flowspec ad. Its Mississauga data center reportedly sent an incorrect Flowspec announcement, preventing the company's BGP routes from taking root.

As CenturyLink's incorrect Flowspec command caused some of the routers in its network to fail, some of these routers also began announcing incorrect BGP routes to other nearby "tier 1" Internet services. This caused other networks to fall into a domino effect.

CenturyLink solved the problem by taking the unprecedented step of telling all other "Tier 1" ISPs to disconnect and ignore all traffic coming from its network. Companies rarely make these kinds of decisions because it results in a total loss of connectivity for all their customers.

As a result, the ISP had to reset all equipment and start with clean BGP routing tables, a process that took nearly seven hours, the company said.

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Source : ZDNet

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.

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Source : Ariase