Today, Arcep is publishing its scorecard for the fixed broadband and superfast broadband market in France as of the end of December 2022. The pace of fibre to the home (FttH) deployment continues at a steady pace, albeit with sizeable regional disparities. Optical fibre plans, which have represented the majority of all broadband and superfast broadband subscriptions in Metropolitan France since mid-20202, continue to progress rapidly.
ROLLOUTS: Overall rate of deployment remained high in 2022, with 4.7 million new FttH lines deployed over the course of the year
- As of 31 December, 34.4 million premises across Metropolitan France were passed for FttH – which means that close to 80% of the 36.9 million premises in the country are able to subscribe to a superfast fixed broadband service.
- Over the course of Q4 2022, 1.3 million additional premises were passed for FttH – or around 10% fewer than in Q4 2021, including:
- Close to 800,000 premises in lower density public-initiative areas were rendered eligible for fibre access, making it the strongest quarter of the year.
- Around 290,000 premises in areas covered by private initiative, marking a dramatic decrease in pace compared to 2021.
- More than 150,000 additional premises passed in those areas covered by calls for expressions of local interest (called "zones AMEL" in French), which is the highest quarterly increase for these areas.
- Fewer than 90,000 additional premises passed in very high-density areas, carrying through on the very weak pace of the past several quarters.
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 Q4 2022, in those parts of the country where the Government has issued a call for investment letters of intent ("zones AMII"):
- around 88% of the premises for which Orange has made a commitment had been made eligible for fibre access;
- and around 95% 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: growth of fibre plan subscription numbers remains high
- Superfast broadband subscription numbers grew by 820,000 in Q4 2022 to reach 21.5 million, in other words 67% of all broadband and superfast broadband subscriptions in Metropolitan France (+8 points YoY). This growth is due entirely to the surge in fibre subscriptions (+ 965,000), coupled with the ongoing decline in subscriptions to plans using other technologies.
- FttH subscription growth continues to enjoy a high rate of growth (+ 965,000 in Q4) but was nevertheless below the increase in 2021 (+ 1.1 million). Subscriptions to fibre-to-the-home plans reached 18.1 million at the end of Q4 2022, representing 84% of all superfast subscriptions and 57% of all broadband and superfast broadband subscriptions (+ 11 points YoY).
- The steady decline of “classic” broadband subscriptions continues at an accelerated pace, in part due to one operator’s lump purge of inactive subscriptions: - 760,000 in Q4 2022 versus - 670,000 in Q4 2021. Their numbers thus dropped to 10.4 million as of 31 December 2022.
- The total number of broadband and superfast broadband subscriptions stood at 31.9 million as of 31 December 2022, which marks a substantial YoY increase: rising by 140,000 subscriptions over the previous quarter (versus + 230,000 in Q4 2021) and by 445,000 YoY (+1.4 %).
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 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 Q4 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