FttH rollouts and take-up progressing slowly but steadily

Paris, 30 November 2017: Today, Arcep is publishing its scoreboard for the fixed broadband and superfast broadband market (rollouts and subscriptions) in France at the end of Q3 2017. It reveals a slight decrease in the rate of deployments which, although they reflect seasonal variations, also reveal that operators need to pick up the pace. This publication also marks the introduction of a more streamlined scoreboard, which contains even more data.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: growth of superfast access services still being driven by fibre to the home (FttH) , which now represents close to 3 million subscriptions

• In Q3 2017 the number of superfast broadband subscriptions (maximum download speed equal to or faster than 30 Mbit/s) increased by 370,000 to reach 6.5 million, or an additional 1.5 million subscriptions year on year (YoY), compared to an increase of 1.2 million the previous year. The majority of this growth is due to an increase in the number of subscriptions to fibre to the home/building (FttH/B) plans, which rose by 265,000 compared to Q2 2017 and by one million since Q3 2016. As of 30 September 2017, there were 2.9 million FttH access lines in use.

• In total, subscriptions to superfast connection plans accounted for 38% of all fixed broadband and superfast broadband subscriptions in France, which marks a 5 percent increase over the previous year.

• The total number of broadband and superfast broadband subscriptions stood at 28.2 million at the end of Q3 2017, which marks an increase of 175,000 over the previous quarter and of 780,000 year on year (+2.9%).

ROLLOUTS: growth continues, but relatively slowly

The pace of FttH rollouts has increased compared to the third quarter of last year, but decreased compared to Q2 2017, with the deployment of an additional 613,000 lines during the quarter.

• Operators have maintained their FttH network rollout efforts. As 30 September 2017, 9.5 million households were eligible to subscribe to an FttH plan, which is a 37% increase YoY. Market players will nevertheless need to step up the pace to be able to meet their coverage targets.

• In total, at the end of Q3 2017, 17.1 million households in France were able to subscribe to a superfast internet access service, all technologies combined, including 11.2 million households located outside of very high-density areas.

A NEW FORMAT FOR THE SCOREBOARD, PROVIDING GREATER CLARITY AND TRANSPARENCY FOR TRACKING ROLLOUTS

• The new scoreboard now includes subscriptions and rollouts in a single document, and zeroes in on the most vital elements. The interactive graphics of the online version give users the ability to view key indicators on local loops, and to choose a specific type of area to view (very high density, lower density areas covered by public and private initiative).

• A new map for tracking FttH rollouts in each municipality is also being introduced. It can be viewed at cartefibre.arcep.fr. This new map allows users to track the progress of rollouts and will now be updated quarterly. The data contained in the maps will be made available as open data files.

• An increasingly detailed open data file is available on the Arcep website which makes it possible to track the indicators published as part of this scoreboard over time