2023-09-28 16:39:00
When the “big family” of French telecoms meets, courtesy does not prevent the actors from sending violent barbs, which sometimes border on invective. This is, unsurprisingly, what happened this Thursday morning, during an Arcep conference at the Arab World Institute in Paris. For the occasion, the regulator invited all telecoms manufacturers, including operators, the government and community representatives, to discuss connectivity issues in France. But one subject, in particular, dominated the debates: that of fiber optic coverage of the country.
At the opening of the event, Laure de La Raudière, the president of Arcep, rolled out her list of grievances to Orange, SFR, Bouygues Telecom and Free. Firstly, the quality of fiber deployment is, according to her, still not up to par. The subject is not new: for years, defects in fiber networks have irritated subscribers and aroused the anger of communities. Laure de La Raudière recalled “without enthusiasm” what she now insists on every official release: “I still receive too many testimonials from customers who are suddenly disconnected, from subscribers who are deprived of the Internet regularly or for a very long time. »
“The results are not noticeable”
Certainly, an action plan to put an end to these dysfunctions was adopted by operators and the fiber industry a year ago. This aimed in particular to improve the practices of technicians in the field. At the same time, several operators, SFR, Free and Altitude, have committed to taking over their most degraded networks. But “the results are not yet visible or perceptible”, lamented the president of Arcep. Before being threatening: “Arcep now expects concrete results from operators and the entire sector, demonstrating the merits of the action plan to improve service qualityshe said. If we don’t have one, we won’t hesitate to move on to another course of action. » In short, sanctions, even if the institution has not spoken out on this subject.
Same story for Jean-Noël Barrot, the Minister Delegate in charge of Digital. In terms of quality of connections, “improvements are slow to materialize, which affects the credit of fiber”, he castigated. According to him, the “economic constraints” which weigh on operators in the event of poor workmanship are not “not strong enough”. “Today, it is perhaps too inexpensive to leave users without solutionshe estimated. This will have to change…” If the situation does not improve, he plans to legislate, and in particular to take over certain modalities of the bill from Senator Patrick Chaize (LR), which plans to shake up the way in which customers are connected, to the great dam of the sector.
“Everything will not be settled next year”
Philippe Le Grand, the president of InfraNum, which brings together all the fiber players, called on Arcep and the executive to “trust the industry”. He said actions to improve connections are complex and take time. “Don’t think that everything will be settled next yearat-il having you. Unfortunately, this is a long-term project…” Words which, without a doubt, will not satisfy local elected officials, who can no longer bear the complaints of their constituents linked to faulty workmanship on fiber networks.
Like Laure de La Raudière, Jean-Noël Barrot was also concerned regarding the sharp slowdown in the deployment of fiber, particularly in medium-sized towns and large urban centers. Which undermines Emmanuel Macron’s promise to bring fiber to all French people by 2025. The minister notably attacked Orange, which has not honored its commitments to cover medium-sized towns, supposed to be covered since the end of 2022… Jean-Noël Barrot however indicated that an agreement was under discussion with the historic operator in order to resolve the problem.
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