It is almost impossible to think of living without the Internet today. However, when households in big cities don’t think about the quality of their internet connection, small towns and some rural areas are not so lucky. In France, it is still estimated today that 7 million the number of households that do not have access to fiber. While awaiting full deployment within a few years, the Minister Delegate in charge of Digital recalled, in an interview published on Sunday December 17, 2023 in the newspaper La Tribune Sundaythat 142,000 households, subject to resource conditions, can benefit from a helping hand from the government to help them equip themselves with very high-speed internet. Since 2019 the government has subsidized “the acquisition of the necessary equipment” such as satellite, dish or 4G for fixed use, but also “installation and activation of the service”. Concretely, this comes in the form ofa help “300 euros, even 600 euros for the most modest households”.
In 2025, fiber will be widespread across the country
For the 2 in 10 French people who do not yet have access to fiber, the Minister Delegate in charge of Digital announced a new measure to improve territorial accessibility. Jean-Noël Barrot has indeed promised the extension of this aid to all French households which cannot yet benefit from fiber. “20 million euros are dedicated to extending this installation aid”I, he explained during his interview. This mainly concerns rural areas still not equipped with very high-speed Internet service, although he affirmed that “the deployments [de la fibre, ndlr.] accelerated” in these areas. “With nearly 10,000 sockets per day deployed by operators in the third quarter of 2023, the pace remains strong”, he explained. A speed which will allow, according to him, to meet the objective set by Emmanuel Macron, to have a generalization of fiber by 2025 in the territory. “This is the commitment of the President of the Republic. I am confident we will achieve it”commented the minister before recalling that “thanks to the deployment of fiber and other technologies, the Internet has very high speed [supérieur à 30 mégabits par seconde] is now accessible to 100% of French people”. Next step: fiber for all. In 2023, there were 20 million subscribers.