The broadband and ultra-broadband market observatory for the first quarter has just been published by Arcep. The regulator notes that "the number of very high-speed subscriptions rose by 1.1 million, i.e. a growth rate of 170% compared to the first quarter of 2020".

This means that "the number of very high-speed subscriptions has reached 15.7 million, and now represents more than half (51%) of the total number of Internet subscriptions in France (+9 points in one year) and 53% of the number of premises eligible for very high-speed access, up 6 points in one year".

The figures for fibre rollouts are also upbeat: "Public Initiative Networks have achieved their best deployment quarter ever and are outpacing private operator rollouts in AMII zones. The overall pace of deployment remains high in the first quarter of 2021, with 1.5 million FTTH lines".

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Source : Next Inpact

Jessica Rosenworcel, the acting chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission has been challenged by four senators to redefine the broadband standard. They want to impose a speed of 100 Mbps symmetrical.

Since 2015, the prevailing definition of Broadband in the United States has been 25 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps upstream. Senators believe that speeds above 3 Mbps in upload are needed throughout the country.

This approach of differentiating between download and upload has already been judged by Jessica Rosenworcel as outdated and she wanted to raise the levels. The challenge is to use these new criteria to better assess the number and location of underserved Americans. This would also perhaps boost fiber, where cable access is the majority in the United States.

As there is no international definition of broadband, it depends on each country. In France, Arcep only takes into account the downstream speed, which must be between 512 Kbits/s and 30 Mbits/s, while the Very High Speed is above 30 Mbits/s. These criteria are much less demanding than the US senators' proposal.

However, the problem is completely different in France, since very efficient FttH (fiber to the home) infrastructures are being deployed at full speed. As a result, very high-speed access should become the majority in our country. The government has also set itself the goal of bringing fiber access to all homes by 2025.

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Source : 01net