The retail market as of 30 June 2009, published at 28th September 2009

Paris, 28 September 2009

Today ARCEP released the second ultra-fast broadband scorecard which provides data on ultra high-speed network rollouts in France and the status of the retail market as of 30 June 2009.

The Authority had published the first edition of this scorecard on 7 April of this year, which provided details on the state of the market as of 31 December 2008.

Real strides were made in ultra-fast broadband rollouts in the first half of 2009, but the number of available connections is still small. France is now among the leading markets in the European Union.

There are currently 230,000 ultra-fast broadband subscribers in France, which marks a 35% increase since 31 December 2008.

In addition, 650,000 households are now eligible to subscribe to a fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) service (i.e. located in a building equipped with optical fibre and connected to at least one operator’s network), or 50% more than on 1 January 2009.

There are still only around 200 (out of 5,000 eligible) households whose FTTx service is delivered thanks to a network sharing agreement between their service provider and the building operator. This figure is expected to increase significantly following the adoption of the ARCEP decision on the terms and methods for accessing ultra-fast optical fibre electronic communications lines, which is due to occur before the end of the year.