Fiber beyond the city: France's approach takes shape

The task of deploying high-speed broadband in less dense areas without rewriting the rule book is an onerous one. In France, stakeholders have been methodically working together to devise a number of interrelated measures that combined should supply operators, investors, and public authorities with a clear framework that facilitates deployment on a large scale. There remain some important aspects to be finalized, but overall it provides a good shot of bringing fiber as equitably as possible to the larger population that lives outside the country’s main urban areas.

 

After finalizing the framework for high-density areas in January 2010, the French regulator, ARCEP, has recently announced a number of measures in relation to rolling out high-speed broadband in less dense areas. In July 2010, it submitted to the competition authority a decision on FTTH network sharing, which mandated symmetrical sharing of the terminal segment of the network.

 

More importantly, this recommendation goes hand in hand with action on a number of other relevant measures from different stakeholders, including:

The announcement of €2 billion of public funding for high-speed broadband infrastructure at the end of last year was welcomed by many (although the cost of providing FTTH to 80% of households is likely to be over €15 billion).

 

However, it also raised questions from those operators already deploying FTTH as to how and where this public funding would be delivered, particularly as the sum in question was not based on any concrete cost modeling: ARCEP is only just submitting a technical/economic model for consultation in the next few months.

 

This should have been done before the level of funding was set and announced, but the money is part of the wider national loan program, which was announced at the end of last year when many countries were rushing to launch stimulus-related projects.