The French government has finally decided how much to invest in FTTH.
Two billion Euro will be earmarked from the 35 billion 'big loan' levied to fund new investments in France (the rest will be spent on innovative services, education, R&D, small businesses, etc.)
Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet gave us more details about the plan today.
The money will be dedicated to semi-dense and rural areas. The technology of choice will be fibre but the Minister does not rule out alternative technologies such as satellite.
The money will be used to jumpstart projects from local governments and operators. Complementary funding will have to be brought by the other parties (equity, subsidies, debt...). The 2 bn will cover about 10% of the total amount needed to deploy super-broadband networks everywhere, which gives an idea of the type of leverage needed.
The funds will be managed and allocated by Agence du Numerique and Caisse des Depots et Consignations, which has already invested in fibre networks with Covage and other operators.
What do we think about this?
It's a very positive announcement but not totally a very different situation than as of today. According to Arcep, the public investment since 2005 in broadband networks has been 1 bn cumulatively, completemented by another billion from operators. So we will see acceleration rather than radical change.
This can be a success if it builds on the existing neutral operators that have been set up in partnership with the local governments. It would both allow to leverage the experience and the funds already committed.
One condition for this plan to succeed is to restrict the funds to neutral operators not controlled by retail operators. This would guaranty that the new infrastructure is made available to all sorts of new service providers offering new and creative services.
If this condition is not fulfilled the risk is that it amounts to a subsidy to dominant operators who are alreay ripe with cash and subject to demands by shareholders to distribute dividends rather than invest in the NGN.
Overall we salute this initiative and are looking forward to enter the 'digital age' as the Minister declared.
Commentaires