MuniWireless

ARCEP, the French regulator, released its quarterly report on the mobile market in France for the 3rd quarter of 2008 ending September 31. Here are a few interesting statistics:

There are 56.4 million mobile phone subscribers, an increase of 0.7% from the previous quarter: a 2.2% increase (+805,000) in post-paid subscriptions and 2.3% decrease (-434,000) in prepaid subscriptions. The 0.7 percent increase is slightly lower than the 1% registered in the same quarter of 2007. On a year-to-year basis, compared to…

France Télécom has released its financial results for the third quarter of 2008 and, unlike most companies, it believes that the financial crisis has had almost no effect of the crisis on its business. In fact, it is sticking to its predictions until the end of the year.  Gervais Pelissier, CFO of France Télécom said in a conference call:

“We see no sign of slowdown in our activities related to the economic and financial crisis. Our revenue growth  in the third…

Two years ago, France granted 44 regional WiMAX licenses in the 3.5 GHz spectrum to operators and local governments, taking in €126 million in one of the most anticipated WiMAX auctions in Europe. This past summer, ARCEP, the French regulator conducted a survey to assess the speed of WiMAX deployments and determine whether WiMAX license holders had met the 30 June 2008 deadline. The findings are grim.

Hardly any WiMAX deployments in France

According to the terms of the WiMAX licenses,…

The long awaited French Digital Plan 2012, whose launch is supposed to propel France into the 21st century, has been overshadowed by the financial crisis. French President Nicholas Sarkozy left it Eric Besson, a Minister whose responsibility is the development of the Digital Economy, to present a long list of 154 action items, at the Palais de l’Elysée, home of the French President.

Besson is one of the architects of the plan, which took many months to prepare. For Besson, the…

French President Nicolas Sarkozy was supposed to present the “Digital Plan 2012” last week but the announcemen was delayed because of the global financial crisis. In the meantime, the French Engineering School of Telecommunications (ENST), which had planned a conference around Sarkozy’s Digital Plan, instead reviewed the status of the “digital dividend” in France.

The early days of radio communications

François Rancy, Director of Agence National des Frequences Radio (ANFR) painted a picture of the history of frequency use in France.…

ARCEP, the French regulator, recently published on its website a set of documents and information about “sharing fiber to the home”. After about 18 months of investigation, trials, technical discussions and assessments, ARCEP concluded that one of the critical conditions for rapid deployment of fiber networks is a set of guidelines for operators, installers, owners and users to share the fiber local loop.

“To deploy a new local loop is an technical, economical and a competitive challenge for France,“ an ARCEP…