ARCEP, the French telecom regulator, has published the latest statistics on high-speed Internet access in France. At the end of Q3 2008, there 17.1 million high-speed Internet subscribers, and of that number 16.3 million are DSL subscribers.
Year-to-year growth is 16% (2.3 million new subscribers were added). At the end of Q2 2008, ARCEP’s figures showed year-to-year growth to be 18%. Unbundling of copper lines has now passed the 6 million mark in France with more than 4.5 million lines fully unbundled. ARCEP regulates unbundling: France Telecom sells wholesale access to operators, giving them direct access to the copper network. For this, the operators need to install their own equipment in France Telecom’s central offices. In this way, they can control high-speed access end-to-end and provide service that is separate from that of France Telecom.
Unbundling is available in two forms:
- partial unbundling where the subscriber keeps a subscription to traditional telephone service;
- full unbundling where the subscriber no longer has a subscription to traditional telephone service.
Unbundling and full unbundling in particular, continues to be the most popular offer on the DSL high-speed wholesale market. In Q3 2008, the number of unbundled access lines rose by 289, 000. This extension of unbundling continues to depend on the active deployment of fiber networks created by local governments and on France Telecom’s “Liaison Fibre Optique” remote central office connection offer. As of 30 September 2008, 3668 central offices had been connected by alternative operators, covering 74% of the French population (up from 3421 at the end of Q2 2008).
Upgrading sub-central offices to full central offices eradicate white zones
At this time, about 550,000 households (1.7% of the French population) live in “white zones”, meaning they do not have DSL access because they are located too far from the closest central office. Since 2007, for municipalities with white zones, France Telecom has created an offer called “NRA Zone d’Ombre” to upgrade sub-central offices to full central offices in order to bring DSL signal injection points closer together and reduce the distance of the lines to these customers.
As of 30 September 2008, France Telecom had built 219 new MDFs (NRA zones d’ombre) including over 200 in the Auvergne region in the center of France through a public-private partnership.
In June 2007, France Telecom also proposed a wholesale offer to alternative operators allowing them to replicate a France Telecom retail offer by requesting a sub-central office to be upgraded to a central office. France Telecom revised this wholesale offer in June 2008 and made it available in September 2008. The first MDF ordered by an alternative operator through the wholesale offer will be put into service in December, in the Moselle department in the east of France.
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