The Cercle CREDO is an industry association promoting the development of Optic Fiber technologies in France. As part of the recent Odébit trade show in La Défense, they organised a half-day session on fiber featuring several very interesting speakers, and they were good enough to let me attend. In the coming days, I will try and summarize the main points and issues raised in each of the four presentations I attended, namely:
- Gabrielle GAUTHEY (ARCEP): ARCEP and FTTH
- Jean-Pierre MESSIN (in charge of the IT and telecoms strategy at the Grand Nancy lkocal government): Benefiting from the Grand Nancy's experience
- Dominique PARET (in charge of IT development for the Loire region): FTTx and local territory attractiveness and competitivity
- Martin De MIJOLLA (IT Director at the General Council of the Hauts de Seine): Deployment of the Very High Bandwidth network in the Hauts de Seine department
Gabrielle Gauthey is a member of the ARCEP college, the inner circle of the French regulator. Her intervention aimed at explaining the way the regulator envisages the FTTx market and where the regulator intended to regulate. Her presentation focused on three themes:
- players' access to existing civil engineering infrastructures
- ways to mutualise the terminal part of the access network
- role of local governments
Mrs Gauthey started by recapitulating the unique situation in which France stands, thanks in large part to the fast and solid development of broadband. Beyond the usual figures, she pointed to an interesting fact that I did now know: ARCEP estimates that half of the COs where unbundling is possible are connected to alternate operator's network through the fiber loops deployed by local governments. This of course, pinpoints the unique role that local governments have already had in spreading out broadband in France...
The issue with FTTH, of course, is that none of the players have the financial capacity to invest the estimated 14 bn EUR required to cover the whole French territory with fiber. Replicating the DSL success will therefore not be an easy task. ARCEP identifies two main hurdles, one "horizontal" and "vertical". These hurdles don't hinder the current deployment too much, because the focus is still on Paris. As soon as the focus shifts to the suburbs and the province, though, they will.
The horizontal hurdle is that France Telecom's existing duct network allows them to deploy faster and much cheaper than competitors who have to rent ducts when they exist but, in most instances, dig to lay their own ducts. ARCEP therefore wants to regulate the duct network. They see three main benefits to this:
- allow the deployment of alternative players in the same or similar conditions than that of the incumbent,
- avoid having to regulate the higher layers of service (a benefit, Mrs. Gauthey says, that France Telecom understands very well...)
- increase the knowledge and collaboration between the incumbent and the local governments on ducts
ARCEP has already identified an existing duct regulation in Portugal, which is one the sources of inspiration for the French regulator. The current consultation on this issue will be closed before the end of the month. What is already clear is that the relevant market to be regulated is that of electronic communication ducts, not any ducts.
The vertical hurdle lies in the financial and marketing absurdity of several players connecting the same buildings. Everyone knows that it's not going to happen and Mrs. Gauthey described the current deployments in France as "the far-west in Paris". ARCEP is envisaging several models, not necessarily mutually exclusive, so share the terminal parts of the network:
- passive mutualisation with unbundling at the building basement and ducts unbundling
- co-investment by players to share the network, the optical CO management and the in-building network
- point to point unbundling at the optical CO
- bitstream offers
The current consultation will help ARCEP orient the conditions of these options, especially in terms of reciprocity between players (and open-ness to new entrants), operation aspects, tarifs and legal specificities.
In all these reflections, ARCEP believes that the local governments have an important role to play and that the experience in accelerating the DSL deployment that they have had must be demonstrated at a European level for this role to be well understood. Mrs. Gauthey sees the local governments
- coordinating the civil engineering works between the players
- laying down ducts in over-capacity when they do their own civil engineering for non-telecom uses
- in some instances, laying down their own fiber networks
While ARCEP deliberates on how to regulate, deployments have already begun. In the meantime, local governments must facilitate the civil engineering in any way they can, Mrs. Gauthey emphasises, especially on the administrative side. Reducing the costs for the players will have a positive impact on their willingness to invest and therefore on the speed at which service becomes available within the local governments' territory. Local governments can and should also promote common network topologies so that players don't find themselves in effective monopoly situations because of incompatible deployments. Finally, they should avoid redundant fibre laying when it can be avoided.
It was overall a very interesting presentation, I'm really not doing it justice. Hopefully, the slides will be made available by CREDO soon (in French).
I asked Mrs. Gauthey at the end of the presentation whether France Telecom had accurate knowledge of the occupancy of its duct network and whether, therefore, duct regulation was a realistic aim. The answer was that ARCEP performed surveys on duct occupation with FT and estimates that the documentation is accurate in 66% of instances. That's still a way to go, she said, but ARCEP feared much worse.
I'll be back soon with summaries of the other three presentations.
