ART sets up an Observatory for the Internet market in France

Paris, 15 June 2004

Autorité de régulation des télécommunications (ART) is establishing a quarterly statistical survey of the Internet market in France. The decision was recently adopted by the Board, will be applied with the 1^st quarter 2004 and defines how the survey will be applied.

Under the new regulatory framework, Internet access providers (IAPs) will contribute to the market Observatory published by ART, as telecoms operators have in the past. The creation of this specific Observatory, which will provide complete information on the Internet activity market, meets the expectations of the market (journalists, financial analysts, consumer associations, Internet users, etc.) as well as of the IAPs themselves.

The content of the survey has been discussed in depth at meetings held in recent months with IAPs. Thanks to these discussions, a quarterly questionnaire specific to the activity of IAPs has been drafted: 32 providers present on the market will be questioned (cf. appendix).

The objective of the survey, which is of a strictly statistical nature, is to provide global information on the Internet market. It will be published only in a national aggregated format and no individual data will be disclosed. Moreover, only the ART agents working on the Observatory will have access to individual company data.

ART aims to publish the results within 90 days of the end of each quarter, provided the reliability and quality of the survey data is sufficiently high.

The first survey results for the 1^st quarter 2004 will be released on 30 June 2004.