The results published by Orange and Bouygues Telecom confirm the French people's enthusiasm for Very High Speed Internet. Both operators saw their number of FttH subscribers explode in the 4th quarter of 2020 with gains of 9% for the former and 16% for the latter.

The end of the year 2020 has never been so successful for the incumbent operator. With 388,000 additional fiber customers in the last three months of the year, Orange had 4.5 million FttH Internet subscribers. This also enables it to consolidate its number one position on fiber even though its runner-up, Free, has not yet published its results.

Act 2 of the confinement has finally convinced many French people of the need for a very high-speed Internet line to cope with the repetition of this type of situation. In this context, Orange fiber being the most available, with 22.9 million eligible premises at the end of the year, was unsurprisingly in great demand.

Bouygues Telecom remains one notch behind Orange, but also Free, in terms of the number of premises eligible for its FttH offers: 17.7 million at the end of 2020. That's still 6 million more in one year, which, combined with the containment effect and the fact that it is moving further afield, is no stranger to the impressive growth posted by the operator.

Indeed, the Bouygues group's telecom brand has grown from 1 million to 1.6 million fiber optic Internet customers in just one year. This represents a jump of 60%, to which the fourth quarter made a major contribution, with 226,000 FttH subscribers joining the ranks over the period.

In total, nearly 40% of the 4.2 million households that surf at Bouygues have optical fiber, a penetration rate similar to that of Orange and Free. With such a buoyant context for fiber, Iliad's brand should undoubtedly break records in the fourth quarter, and approach the symbolic milestone of 3 million fiber subscribers. Answer during its 2020 review, scheduled for next month.

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Source : DegroupTest

The President of the Republic announced a plan to support the French cybersecurity sector. These computer attacks affect all countries in all sectors, with attacks sometimes with cybercriminal aims and sometimes with a desire to destabilize another State.

On this subject, Emmanuel Macron recalls the progress already implemented by Anssi since 2017, and details the government's additional efforts in this area.

The objectives of the plan announced by the government are to strengthen the cyber security sector and support the digital transition of the players, companies and local authorities affected by this upsurge in attacks.

A four-part plan. The first part will be devoted to funding research and development of a "cutting-edge" technology offering in the security sector, to the tune of 500 million euros. Public funds will finance 290 million, while the rest will come from private players.

The second part of the plan represents 148 million euros and concerns the "strengthening of links in the sector". State investment will amount to 74 million euros.

The third component aims to "support demand", with a plan of 176 million euros. 136 million will be allocated to Anssi through the recovery plan and the rest will be aimed at supporting the training effort.

The final component, valued at 200 million euros, will concern direct investments by the State in cybersecurity companies. Here too, the State is counting on public/private partnerships to support the emergence of new players.

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Source : ZDNet

Rezopole offers you, on March 09th & 10th, an interactive workshop to transfer you the basics of the BGP protocol and guide you towards IP autonomy.

This training, provided by professionals for professionals, covers the operation and configuration of BGP on Bird, Cisco, FRR. This protocol is necessary to interconnect on an IXP and take advantage of "multiple transit" offers.

During these two days, you will progressively and completely approach the different aspects of BGP (peering and the use of Route Server). From the first day, you set up your first session. You will also discover the techniques for announcing and filtering networks, both in IPv4 and IPv6.

Price: 1000 € (Ex-VAT) per attendee during 2 days!

This training may be covered by your OPCO (activity number: 84691581469).

Do you want to participate? Just send us an email.

The registration closing date is on March 5th, 2021.

Program

  Download the BGP training info 

France-IX is at the heart of Internet exchanges: peering. Presentation of the company, its regional mission in France, its community of about 400 member companies, its activities, its projects...

(Re)Discover the interview of Simon Muyal, France-IX's CTO, for DataCenter Magazine.

 Listen to the interview

Source : DataCenter Magazine

The annual report on the quality of experience of the services offered by mobile operators in mainland France has just been published by the specialized firm Qosi. This document is intended to report on user experience on 2G, 3G and 4G networks marketed by operators during the year 2020.

This study is based on feedback from 42,000 contributors spread across 20,000 municipalities in France. And the results reflect a growing disparity of situations, whether in the countryside or in the city. By 2020, 23% of metropolitan municipalities will have a low-quality 4G network, with the vast majority of flows below 10 Mb/s. Worse still, 3% of the municipalities surveyed do not have any usable data network... 95% of these municipalities are located in rural areas.

Nevertheless, it should be noted that the quality of service of mobile networks is constantly improving, both in the city and in the countryside. In terms of downstream speeds, for example, Orange is one step ahead of its competitors in 2020, with the best average speed at national level. The incumbent operator is followed by SFR, then Bouygues and finally Free.
Despite widespread improvement, this is still not enough to widen the yawning gap that now separates rural and urban connections.

Take the case of Orange. Even by improving its downstream speeds by 10 Mb/s in all geographical areas, this is still not enough to close the gap between the quality of service observed in rural and urban areas. The operator is thus the one with the greatest disparity in speeds between the different strata of the population.

Conversely, Free is progressing uniformly throughout the country, making it the operator offering the most consistent quality of service.

The same applies to upload speeds. Orange has the best average upload speed in France. But the difference in treatment will remain significant depending on whether users are in urban or rural areas. In spite of this, the incumbent operator has established itself as the operator offering the best speeds for all population strata. Next comes Bouygues Telecom, followed by SFR and then Free.

This territorial divide is logically reflected in the results of the quality of service offered by operators on web browsing. At the national level, the proportion of pages displayed in less than 10 seconds is 92% for Orange, 89% for Bouygues Telecom and SFR and 86% for Free. Here again, rural areas are down 5 to 10 points compared to urban areas. This is enough to push operators to redouble their efforts to finally hope to bridge the digital divide in 2021.

 Read the article

Source : ZDNet

Spanish company Cellnex has just acquired the entire portfolio of 10,500 French mobile sites from Hivory, SFR's TowerCo. Effective by the second half of 2021 and subject to approval by the authorities, the transaction was valued at 5.2 billion euros for Cellnex. It will also include an additional investment program of 900 million euros to deploy 2,500 new sites by 2029.

With this transaction, Cellnex is at the forefront of the mobile infrastructure market in France. Present in France since 2016 through its local branch, the group had more than 9,000 mobile sites throughout the country by 2020. The acquisition of Hivory puts Cellnex in the shoes of the sector leader, with nearly 20,000 mobile sites (antennas and rooftop terraces) across the country.

As under the agreements entered into by Bouygues Telecom and then Free with Cellnex, SFR is expected to remain the tenant of its former mobile infrastructure network for a period of at least 18 years, renewable for periods of 5 years.

The agreement signed with SFR illustrates the Group's strong ambitions in France and Europe. The Spanish mobile infrastructure champion has therefore just acquired one of its main competitors on the French market.

Now only TDF and the future TowerCo of Orange France remain on the French market to face the Spanish giant. This puts the latter in a comfortable position, before its new capital increase. This should enable it to finance a portfolio of acquisition projects, part of which has already been committed for the acquisition of Hivory in France and the integration of Deutsche Telekom's sites in the Netherlands.

For fiscal year 2019, the Group recorded a 15% increase in total revenues for the year and a 16% increase in EBITDA compared to the previous fiscal year. With operations in Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Portugal, Austria, Denmark and Sweden, the Spanish ogre now has a fleet of 120,000 sites, 75,000 of which are operational, with the remainder being acquired or deployed by 2028.

 Read the article

Source : ZDNet

Organized on January 29th, the second round of elections served to renew the France-IX Board of Directors by guaranteeing greater equity for Rezopole members (integrated as members of France-IX since December 15th, 2020).

Many members voted, since with 38% of voters, the 25% quorum was far exceeded!

Of the six candidates in contention, Philippe Duby and Grégoire Villain received the largest number of votes.

A majority of the members supported the former Chairman of the Board of Directors of Rezopole, thus ensuring representation on the France-IX Board of Directors by a candidate from the Lyon community.

For more information, click here.

Named EllaLink, this transatlantic submarine cable provides the first direct high-speed connection between Europe and Latin America.

Operational in the second quarter of 2021, this project will reduce latency by 50% compared to the current infrastructure, reaching a real value of less than 60 ms between Portugal and Brazil.

Connections are also planned with Madeira Island, Cape Verde and Marseille, for increased connectivity to Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Other connection points are being studied, such as with Mauritania, Morocco, French Guiana and the Canary Islands.

With a budget of 150 million euros, the Ellalink project is a double success: Portuguese and European. Both for newly re-elected President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and for Portugal's presidency of Europe, establishing a successful relationship between the two continents.

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Source : Datacenter Magzine

France-IX Lyon / Rezopole will meet you on February 05th for a morning dedicated to the improvement of BtoB Internet exchanges thanks to LyonIX and GrenobliX infrastructures.

Details will be detailed during this videoconference:
- the IXP part, which improves Internet exchanges between users in a territory, reduces telecom costs, and secures and optimizes the network thanks to the multiple routes offered.
- the NAP part, which provides connected members with direct access to the operators present and their offers. We buy or sell any type of Telecom service with great flexibility.

On the agenda

• General presentation
• What is an IXP/NAP?
  • How does it work?
  • Economic & technical advantages
•  The IXP / NAP of Lyon and Grenoble
  • Members
  • Offers & services
  • Connection solutions
• Events & Tools
• Questions & Answers

Useful information

• Schedule from 9:30 to 11:00 a.m.
• Link of the videoconference sent by email the day before the event

 Register

In order to make fiber available by 2025 for 100% of premises in France, the government has decided to release an additional 570 million euros.

This sum will notably concern the Réseaux d'Initiatives Publiques (RIP) to offer fiber everywhere in rural areas. An initial budget of 420 million euros will be allocated to 12 RIPs, including those in Auvergne and Brittany. Auvergne alone will be entitled to 123 million euros to create 267,000 fiber outlets, i.e. additional individual connections.

The remaining 150 million euros will arrive a little later. The State has indicated that the details of this sum will be shared during the summer.

Mobile coverage is also being discussed. While three quarters of France is currently covered in 4G by Orange, SFR, Bouygues Telecom and Free Mobile, 2,000 additional masts will be installed over the next two years. They will join the 580 existing pylons. In total, the operators will install some 10,000 masts.

 Read the article

Source : KultureGeek

France-IX and Rezopole, the two largest peering Internet exchange points in France, merge. Solutions Numériques asked their two representatives for further details.

Physical infrastructure, the IXP (Internet eXchange Point) or GIX (Global Internet eXchange), allows interconnected players to exchange local Internet traffic through mutual agreements known as "peering". This improves the quality of their Internet speed and limits the number of intermediaries to transport the information.

France-IX is one of the main exchange points in Europe, while Rezopole, based in Lyon, is the largest regional exchange point in France. Faced with international competition gaining ground in France, in a desire to participate in the sovereignty of the Internet and with the desire to expand their presence in French-speaking countries, they decided to join forces and collaborate.

For 10 years, France-IX has been offering public and private interconnection services through its neutral exchange points in Paris and Marseille. It has more than 400 members under its association status, while the operational structure is led by SAS France-IX Services, headed by Franck Simon, whose sole shareholder is the association.

For its part, Rezopole, which has had association status for 20 years, has more than 100 members connected in Lyon and the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, and offers a wide range of complementary peering services. Philippe Duby is its President. Its assets, men and equipment, join SAS France-IX Services, while its members are added to those of the France-IX association.

Solutions Numériques interviewed Franck Simon, President of France-IX Services and Philippe Duby, President of Rezopole. They spoke about the association's status, their customers, the reasons for this merger and future challenges and deployments.

 Read the article

Source : Solutions Numériques

As previously announced, a second General Assembly will take place, still remotely, on Friday, January 29th.

This extraordinary session will be devoted to the election of the two remaining seats on the Board of Directors of France-IX. Elections will be split in two to ensure fairness with Rezopole members, who are now integrated as members of France-IX and can therefore vote. Their representation on the new Board is therefore encouraged by allowing Rezopole members to support and vote for candidates from their community.

Voting is already open and takes place online. The results of the election will be announced on January 29th on the France-IX website and on social networks.

Find all the useful information (candidates, voting procedure, etc.) here: https://www.franceix.net/en/general-meeting/

By merging with France-IX, Rezopole is entering a new stage in its development. The aim of this project is to capitalize on the financial, human, commercial and technical resources of both entities. This merger proves to be a very good opportunity for the future for both parties.

You can consult the various legal documents below:

France-IX Administration List of members	Rezopole Administration List of members

Rezopole parent company financial statements Fiscal 2017	Rezopole parent company financial statements Fiscal 2018	Rezopole parent company financial statements Fiscal 2019	Intermediate situation of Rezopole on 30.06.2020

Minutes of the board of directors of Rezopole of 13.10.2020	Minutes of the board of directors of France-IX of 15.10.2020

Absorption Melting Treaty of Rezopole by France-IX	Draft contribution contract	Value Report	APA Remuneration Report

In July 2020, Free approached the Arcep, asking it to specify the conditions of access for market players to SFR's FttH network in less dense private initiative zones (AMII). Iliad's subsidiary demanded that SFR's tariffs for access to the terminal part of its network be regulated, limiting any increase to the indexation provided for in the mutualization contract between the two operators and making any change beyond this scale subject to the signature of a rider "negotiated in good faith".

This is a hot topic, because already last April, the Arcep said it was ready to put the "points on the i's" in the issue of the increase in connection rates to SFR's fiber network in private areas. In fact, the Authority had already demanded from the mark with the red square the cancellation of the increase in its tariffs in force since the beginning of the year 2020 after having been seized by Bouygues Telecom last winter.

Free, which therefore demanded the revision of the co-financing rates demanded by SFR, in the AMII zone, so that they do not exceed €5.12 per line and per month (or €513.6 per line for the non-recurring rate) for a co-financing up to 20%.

This request was accepted by Arcep, which asked SFR to adjust its tariffs in the AMII zones but also in the AMEL zones. The Gendarme des Télécoms justifies this position by stating that SFR's infrastructure branch "has not produced any specific elements that would allow it to understand its costs" and believes that increases in access tariffs must "be justified by cost elements".

As in the dispute between Bouygues Telecom and SFR, the Arcep has enjoined the brand with the red square to return to its co-financing rates applied before February 2020. However, it has the possibility of adjusting them in a much more modest manner by means of an amendment. This decision was eagerly awaited by certain players in the sector, for whom the survival of the principle of sharing the terminal part of the Orange and SFR fiber networks, in force since 2008, was at stake.

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Source : ZDNet

Free was lagging behind when it came to activating IPv6 support on the mobile, but that has now changed. Indeed, a new option has appeared in the Free Mobile subscriber area allowing to activate it.

The transition to IPv6 has been a long-standing issue for operators since the shortage of IPv4 addresses has been felt for several years. The use of the new IP address standard solves the problem; the new protocol has an almost unlimited stock of IP addresses attributable to devices.

At the beginning of December, the Arcep updated its barometer of the IPv6 transition in France. Bouygues is doing well in this respect, with 87% of Android customers and 98% of iOS customers IPv6-enabled. Second came Orange with 35% on Android and 60% on iOS, while on SFR, only 0.2% of Android customers had activated IPv6. Free was last, as IPv6 activation was simply not available for the ISP's mobile clients until then.

While Free has been a poor performer on cell phones, the operator is catching up on fixed Internet networks with 99% of its customers having an IPv6-enabled connection. Next comes Orange with 75%, followed by Bouygues at 28% and SFR at 1.6%.

 Read the article

Source : ZDNet