MuniWireless

Occasionally I post comments that expose the abysmal experiences of people who buy telecommunications services. This week’s comment comes from Fuming SFR  Customer: “My experiences with the SFR prepaid internet have been atrocious. First, other countries in Europe offer prepaid internet based on data usage – not time connected, which makes a lot more sense. SFR asks you to send a copy of your i.d. by mail after purchase, and they will terminate your connection if you don’t, but this…

Last Friday in Paris, the French regulator ARCEP held a press conference to announce that Iliad-Free will be the new mobile operator in France. It has taken five years for the French government to bring a fourth operator market because of strong opposition from the other incumbents, France Télécom-Orange,  SFR and Bouygues.  ARCEP had no other choice because Iliad-Free was the company to respond to the second RFP which was issued on 3 August 2009 (two years after the first…

Jean Louis Missika, a deputy Mayor of Paris in charge of technology, has wasted no time in taking advantage of the end of the “fiber war” among the four major operators in France (Iliad-Free, France Télécom, SFR and Numéricable). He brought them together the to sign a “charter of good conduct” whose aim is to install fiber optic networks in all social housing units in Paris. The fiber network will deliver up to 100 Mbps to about 400,000 people, or…

Iliad, a French telecommunications operator, has launched its “Free” fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) service in the city of Valenciennes with a 30 EUR per month triple play (Internet-TV-Telephony) offer that promises 100 Mbps downstream and 50 Mbps upstream.

Valenciennes belongs to the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region and lies very close to the border with Belgium. It has a population of approximately 50,000 and an area of 6 square miles. The FTTH network is the result of a close cooperation between the Valenciennes municipality and Iliad-Free. The…

The Economist has a fascinating article about Xavier Niel, founder of Iliad, a French telecom operator that is about to do for the French cellular market what it did for the broadband market. Iliad has announced its intention to bid for the fourth 3G license in France and to instigate a price war with the big 3 operators: France Telecom, SFR and Bouygues.

In the past few years, French consumers have seen the price of broadband service drop dramatically, thanks to…

At the Broadband World Forum Europe held in Paris last week, several announcements revealed that Eastern European countries have been driving broadband growth in fiber to the home (FTTH) and fiber to the building (FTTB) deployments. The FTTH Council Europe presented the results of a survey conducted by iDate on the progress of FTTH/FTTB in Europe.

Roland Montagne, Analyst at iDate explained:

“The build up of fiber-to-the-home and fiber-to-the-building (FTTH/FTTB) infrastructures in Europe has been growing with 120 new projects added in…