Communiqué de presse - Superfast Broadband

FttH rollouts and take-up continue to make progress. Arcep details the progress being made in rollouts, on the local scale

Version française

Paris, 7 June 2018

Today, Arcep is publishing its scoreboard for the fixed broadband and superfast broadband market (rollouts and subscriptions) in France at the end of March 2018. It confirms the ongoing increase in FttH subscription numbers and rollouts. Arcep also continues to enhance the cartefibre.arcep.fr website that makes it possible to track the progress being made in coverage, on the scale of areas located downstream from the concentration point.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: superfast access now represents more than a quarter of all broadband and superfast broadband access lines.

  • Over the course of Q1 2018, the number of superfast broadband subscriptions (maximum download speed equal to or faster than 30 Mbit/s) increased by 505,000 to reach 7.5 million, or an additional 1.7 million subscriptions year on year (YoY), versus an increase of 1.3 million one year earlier. The majority of this growth is due to an increase in the number of subscriptions to fibre to the home/building (FttH/B) plans, which rose by 355,000 compared to the previous quarter and by 1.2 million over Q1 2017. As of 31 March 2018, the number of end-to-end fibre access lines totalled 3.6 million.

  • In total, superfast broadband subscriptions accounted for 41% of all premises eligible to subscribe to a superfast access plan, which marks a 5% increase YoY.

  • The total number of broadband and superfast broadband subscriptions stood at 28.6 million at the end of Q1 2018, which marks an increase of 175,000 over the previous quarter and of 685,000 year on year (+2.5%).

ROLLOUTS: growth continues, but the pace needs to accelerate further still

Over the past four quarters, 2,730,000 FttH connections have been installed, of which 660,000 in Q1 2018. The players need to continue to set up the pace of their rollouts if they are to achieve the coverage targets they have set for themselves.

  • As of 31 March 2018, 10.9 million premises were eligible to subscribe to an FttH access service, or 33% more than one year earlier.

  • In total, at the end of Q1 2018, 18.1 million households in France were able to subscribe to a superfast internet access service, all technologies combined, including 12.2 million households located outside of very high-density areas.

  • The rate of fib sharing is still very low in more sparsely populated areas covered by public initiative networks (PIN): 30% compared to the national average of 75%. Signs of early growth are nevertheless becoming visible in these areas, as the rate of fibre sharing rose by six points during the quarter (24% in Q4 2017), after having increased very little up until then. We are thus starting to see the effects of the first agreements between national operators and PIN operators.

  • FttH rollout data have been updated on the cartefibre.arcep.fr website and in the Open Data made available by Arcep.

Tracking FttH rollouts: cartefibre keeps getting better

Arcep continues to increase the range of data made available to the public. A new feature now makes it possible to view areas downstream from concentration points on cartefibre.arcep.fr, and to track the progress of FttH rollouts in a more detailed fashion. For each area, the map also provides information on the total number of eligible premises. This information is available as open data in ESRI Shapefile format.

Arcep also continues to work on preparing a complete scoreboard on national fixed network coverage, all technologies combined, for each individual address.