"The objective will be met: to bring very high speed broadband to 100% of French people by the end of 2022, 80% of which will be fibre - probably more," said Cédric O, the Secretary of State for Digital Affairs.

After a decade of work and more than 20 billion euros invested, the figures prove him right. Indeed, two thirds of French households were eligible for fibre optics last spring. With a current rate of 15,000 new homes and businesses seeing fibre arrive on their doorstep every day, the 80% mark will be passed by the first half of 2022.

For French people not covered, there is an alternative solution offering speeds of over 100 Mb/s: VDSL, cable or, soon, satellite - thanks to the commissioning of Eutelsat's very powerful Konnect VHTS.

The gamble has therefore been successful nine years after the launch of the "France Very High Speed Plan". Especially since the objectives have been raised: the estimated total number of households in France has risen from 36 million in 2013 to 41 million in 2022, without lowering the 80% mark. And that there was no shortage of difficulties: shortage of raw materials, shortage of manpower, stoppage of construction sites at the start of the pandemic, etc.

The work still needs to be finished, because even in large cities, around 10% of homes are still without fibre optics. In medium-sized towns, the situation is not satisfactory either. They were supposed to be fully covered by fibre by the end of 2020. Six months after the deadline, only four out of five homes were eligible. The government and Arcep are passing the quid on a possible sanction, but a certain annoyance is perceptible on the part of the authorities. As for the countryside, fibre is being rolled out at breakneck speed. But they are not fully covered by the projects already launched. About 2 million homes are still in limbo. These lines, the most complicated to build and the least profitable, will require new subsidies.

Through the stimulus package, the government has already put €150 million on the table. The industry estimates that at least two to three times more will be needed. An evaluation mission should be made public at the end of the year. We will then know how much the next executive will have to invest if it wants to bring fibre to 100% of French people.

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Source : Les Echos

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

Although the launch of the France Très Haut Débit plan in 2013 was slow, its acceleration has finally produced good results. Metropolitan France will not be covered by 2022, as was initially planned, and it will take until 2025 - or even 2030 - for some regions to be fully covered. However, the investments made in deployment work have enabled the country to make a good comeback in the European rankings. France is now ahead of the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy with an average speed of over 50 Mb/s.

These efforts have resulted in a significant increase in subscriptions, as France now has more than 14 million fibre-optic customers. The country will soon have more fibre subscribers than xDSL Internet customers.

Orange is by far the leading fibre optic Internet provider with over 5.2 million customers, ahead of SFR (3.6 million), Free (3.3 million) and Bouygues Telecom (1.9 million).

Moreover, the health crisis has only accentuated the need for the French to be able to rely on a reliable and efficient Internet connection. So much so that in the real estate sector, the connection of properties to the fibre optic network is becoming an increasingly important criterion for buyers.

The current challenge is in rural areas, where fibre optics are more expensive to deploy and less profitable. This is why the State and local authorities are obliged to get involved through the RIPs (public initiative networks) to accompany the rollouts carried out by the operators. This is why the recovery plan decreed to revive the economy after the stoppage linked to Covid-19 provides for some 570 million euros for the deployment of optical fibre.

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Source : Les Numériques

The executive's discourse seems to have evolved over the summer on the issue of digital planning. The future recovery plan will not forget fiber since the plan will provide additional funds to support areas where some 3 million lines remain to be financed.

This financial boost is part of a more ambitious project, outlined by Cédric O: moving towards a "universal service" for fiber.

The first piece of information delivered by the Secretary of State for the Digital Transition and Electronic Communications: the subsidy window for public fiber deployment projects is going to be replenished.

Until now, the government has refused to go beyond 280 million euros in subsidies, when both local authorities and manufacturers calculated total needs at 680 million euros. 680 million. Last May, in a letter sent to the executive, local authority associations warned that "a reassessment of this envelope will have to be studied in light of the financial situation of local authorities, the higher deployment costs associated with health measures and the higher than expected number of catches to be deployed".

Unveiled next week, the recovery plan will provide more details on the effort the government is prepared to make on this specific point.

Additional funds to generalize fiber, yes, but "with the ambition to move towards the logic that fiber must be an essential service," added Cédric O. The government seems to be aligning itself with a request made by local authorities, since this would allow "professionals in the sector to continue to ensure the deployment and operation of fixed and mobile networks in the event of a crisis". It would also provide an opportunity to remove certain obstacles to deployment, such as access to common areas to fiber the risers of buildings.

If the idea of making fiber an essential infrastructure met with the reservations of the former Minister of the City and Housing - in charge of the THD dossier - this is however what the executive wants to work towards today: "we want to work on the notion of universal service," indeed added Cédric O. A project that could start as early as this fall, when the European Electronic Communications Code is transposed into French law. "This should enable us to extend the concept of universal service to include fiber coverage of the territory," the Secretary of State for Digital Affairs added.

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Source : DegroupNews