ARCEP publishes a handbook on ultra-fast broadband for elected officials and local authorities

Paris, 22 July 2011

Deploying ultra-fast broadband is one of the major infrastructure projects facing our country in the coming years.
Local authorities will play a decisive role in these deployments throughout the country:

• by drafting digital regional development blueprints, they will work in tandem with the State and operators to define strategies for achieving digital coverage and for making the transition to ultra-fast broadband in the way best suited to their region;
• they may also decide to deploy public-initiative networks that will help expand broadband and ultra-fast broadband network coverage to benefit a maximum number of users.

Today ARCEP is releasing a handbook that is aimed at elected officials and local authorities whose purpose is to assist them in carrying out these essential tasks.

This handbook describes the issues, stakeholders and instruments, both technical and regulatory, associated with optical fibre rollouts across the country.

It provides a reminder of the main provisions in the regulatory framework governing broadband and ultra-fast broadband (for FTTH and schemes for increasing bandwidth on existing networks) which ARCEP finalised recently.

It also underscores the parameters that local authorities will need to take into account when working to prepare and carry out their public-initiative projects under the best possible conditions.