ART rules on a dispute between Télécom Développement and France Télécom regarding secure interconnections to subscriber switches on France Télécom's networks

Paris, 19 January 2000

On 12 July 1999, the company Télécom Développement called on Autorité de régulation des télécommunications (ART) to arbitrate in a dispute with France Télécom regarding the security of its interconnections in order to guarantee the quality of services offered to users.

Télécom Développement, a shared subsidiary of Cegetel and SNCF, chose to invest in a very dense telecoms network infrastructure in order to interconnect to France Télécom's subscriber switches—the equipment closest to subscribers which are now available for interconnection.

It asked France Télécom to offer it an economically viable service which would allow it to guarantee good quality service on its network. In more technical terms, it asked France Télécom to automatically reroute calls received on its network to its interconnection on the opertor connection point, whenever there is a malfunction on the subscriber's switch.

ART considered that France Télécom is responsible for providing Télécom Développement with offers providing automatic security, since France Télécom uses this type of service itself. Télécom Développement's concern is to avoid unexpected service breaks, in order to guarantee the quality of the service it offers users. On the other hand, ART considers that beyond a certain volume of traffic, Télécom Développement should have other security methods before it benefits from such an automatic service.

In order to provide good visibility to both parties, ART decided that France Télécom must provide automatic security as requested by Télécom Développement until 2001. Beyond this date, and on sites with significant traffic volumes, Télécom Développement will put in place other security equipment to allow it to continue to receive France Télécom's offer.

This is the first decision made by ART regarding the quality of telecommunications network services. It is of particular importance because it guarantees that users will receive reliably high-quality services on telecommunications networks, during a period in which operators are progressively deploying their networks and service offers are multiplying.