Today, Arcep is publishing its scorecard for the fixed broadband and superfast broadband market in France as of the end of June 2022. The rate of fibre to the home (FttH) deployment and adoption has stabilised. Optical fibre plans now represent 51% of all broadband and superfast broadband subscriptions.
ROLLOUTS: Despite a slower rate of progress, rollouts continue apace, with 1.2 million new FttH lines deployed over the course of Q2 2022
- Over the course of Q2 2022, 1.2 million additional premises were passed for FttH – or just over 20% fewer than in Q2 2021.
- As of 30 June 2022, 32 million premises were eligible to subscribe to an FttH access service, or 16% more than one year earlier. Around three quarters of all premises in France are thus eligible for FttH.
- Over the course of this second quarter, close to 800,000 premises in lower density public-initiative areas were rendered eligible for fibre access, which is close to what was achieved in Q2 last year.
- The pace of FttH deployment in areas covered by private initiative continues to slow compared to the previous quarter, with fewer than 250,000 additional premises passed in Q2 2022, which is a rate comparable to the one observed in 2016.
- Additional premises passed in those areas covered by calls for expressions of local interest (called "zones AMEL" in French) exceeded 400,000 at the end of Q2 2022.
- Lastly, the insufficient rate of progress of the past several quarters persists in very high-density areas, and the production of new lines has even decreased by more than 25% YoY.
- In total, at the end of Q2 2022, 35 million households in France were able to subscribe to a superfast internet access service over a fixed network, or more than four in five premises.
Monitoring operators’ compliance with their legally binding FttH rollout commitments
Arcep is responsible for monitoring operators’ compliance with the commitments they have made, and publishes a progress report on the rollouts in question on a regular basis.
At the end of Q2 2022, in those parts of the country where the Government has issued a call for investment letters of intent ("zones AMII"):
- around 87% of the premises for which Orange has made a commitment had been made eligible for fibre access;
- and around 94% of those in municipalities where SFR has made a commitment had been made eligible for fibre access.
Details regarding the progress of individual “AMEL” project commitments (i.e. legally binding FttH rollout commitments that certain operators have made to local authorities, as part of calls for expressions of local interest) can be found in pages 19 to 23 of the publication.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: fibre plans now represent the majority of broadband and superfast broadband subscriptions in France.
- Superfast broadband subscription numbers had climbed to 20 million as of 30 June 2022, accounting for 63% of all broadband and superfast broadband subscriptions in France (+9 points YoY). Quarterly growth for superfast subscriptions remains high (+ 685,000 in Q2 2022) but is below the +925,000 increase of the previous year. This is due primarily to the slower rate of increase for end-to-end fibre access plans, and the accelerated rate of decline in subscriptions to copper-based superfast broadband (VDSL2) plans.
- Superfast subscription growth continues to be due exclusively to the strong uptick in adoption FttH adoption rates: +825,000 FttH subscriptions in Q2 2022, compared to + 980,000 one year earlier. As a result, at the end of the second quarter of 2022, subscriptions to fibre-to-the-home plans reached 16.3 million, representing 82% of all superfast subscriptions in France and, for the first time, the majority of all broadband and superfast broadband subscriptions: 51%, marking an 11-point increase YoY.
- The steady decline of “classic” broadband subscriptions continues, albeit at a more moderate pace (- 2.6 million compared to - 3.1 million one year earlier), with their number dropping to 11.8 million as of 30 June 2022.
- The total number of broadband and superfast broadband subscriptions stood at 31.7 million at the end of Q2 2022, increasing by 110,000 over the previous quarter (versus + 185,000 in Q2 2021) and by 705,000 YoY.
Tracking FttH rollouts with “Ma connexion internet”
The “Déploiements fibre” maps on the “Ma connexion Internet” website (formerly cartefibre.arcep.fr) allow users to track the progress of FttH rollouts in a very detailed fashion. The forecast view also provides them with information on the timeline for upcoming optical fibre rollouts in a given municipality.
The information associated with these rollout maps, both existing and forecast, is available as open data
Associated documents
• Scorecard for fixed broadband and superfast broadband services – figures for Q2 2022
• Maconnexioninternet.arcep.fr, to obtain detailed information on fixed internet access coverage, particularly thanks to FttH rollout maps (which are also still available at https://cartefibre.arcep.fr/)
• Open data: data on fibre and data on all access technologies
Missing information that will be published in the coming weeks:
> FttH network sharing figures