France Telecom (NYSE: FTE) revealed that it will bring Fiber to the Home (FTTH)-based services to 15 million homes, or 60 percent of France's households, by the year 2020.
Initially targeting 10 million homes by 2015, the network rollout, when complete, would be spread across 220 agglomerations, including all large and medium-sized towns or cities.
However, the former state-owned telco isn't going it alone. In addition to spending €2 billion ($2.7 billion) during the next four years to build out the network, it would supplement that investment with "other interested network operators" by opening its network according to new regulations set by France's telecom regulator Arcep.
Although France Telecom has built out FTTH about 15 of the country's largest cities and surrounding suburbs, reaching the one million homes passed mark, the French government is keen on having the service provider accelerating that number to two million by this December. Outside of areas that were not cited in French government's FTTH build out request document, France Telecom will work with local communities to provide Fiber to the Curb (FTTC) as an interim step towards fiber-based broadband services
While it is keen on advancing its FTTH footprint as set by the government, France Telecom isn't turning its back on traditional copper-based DSL either. As part of its Conquests 2015 project, the service provider plans to increase its current ADSL coverage from 98.6 percent of residential homes today to more than 99 percent by 2013.
For more:
- TeleGeography has this article
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