France Very High Speed ​​Plan: a “success” with several drawbacks

Launched in 2013 under the presidency of François Hollande, the France Very High Speed ​​Plan (PFTHD) aimed, as its name suggests, to cover the entire territory with very high speed by the end of 2022. Some 10 years later , and 13.3 billion euros of public investment granted, has the objective been achieved?

Yes, states bluntly the evaluation committee, led by France Strategy, in a report submitted to Jean-Noël Barrot, Minister Delegate in charge of the Digital Transition and Telecommunications. At the end of the plan, 99% of premises in the territory will benefit from very high-speed coverage – i.e. greater than 30 Mb/s – whether through a wired solution (fiber, ADSL, coaxial cable ), satellite or radio technology.

Deployment inequalities

This coverage approaching 100% may come as a surprise to French people who experience recurring difficulties in accessing the internet on their territory. France Stratégie recalls that a room is considered “covered” when at least one of the very high speed technologies mentioned above is available in its area.

“In the case of fiber, the deployment was able to be carried out, but if there is not yet a commercial operator on the network capable of offering a subscription to end users, the premises are connectable, but not yet eligible. “, explains France Strategy. And “although the coverage objectives of the plan have therefore been achieved, inequalities in deployment remain according to the “zones” of intervention. »

The report notes that in sparsely populated areas, public initiative networks (RIP) combining public and private investments have had a later start. In these territories, only 51% of premises can be connected. At the current rate of deployments in these RIP zones – more than five million sockets per year – the generalization of fiber should be reached in 2025, estimates France Strategy.

The report also notes a delay in the outskirts of certain large cities. In these areas, a single network is generally deployed thanks to co-investment between operators. To reduce the digital divide in these latter territories, the government is preparing a draft decree on universal access to very high speed broadband for all, at “an affordable price” and accompanied by a guaranteed speed of 30 Mb/s.

Acceleration in the final straight

Whatever the difficulties encountered locally, France Strategy considers that the PFTHD is a “success”, and without this giving rise to any budgetary drift. However, France was starting from afar. In 2015, 77.6% of the population was in the white zone, and therefore excluded from very high-speed fixed broadband. This placed our country at 26^e European rank. In 2022, it was back to 12^e rank for THD, and even placed itself in the front runners for fiber on the Old Continent.

While we reported a delay of the PFTHD at the end of 2018, the movement has accelerated since then. “The success of the plan is largely due to an original governance ensured in a shared manner between local authorities, State services and private operators”, estimates France Strategy. Public funds coming to make their contribution in less dense areas, shunned by market players.

The choice to favor fiber to the subscriber (FttH for “fiber to the home”) also contributed to a clear acceleration in the last years of the plan. According to the latest count from Arcep, the telecoms regulatory authority, 35.9 million premises are now eligible for very high wired speed, ie more than four out of five premises.

Late companies

Here again, France Strategy qualifies this good result according to the market segment served. Although fiber has been widely adopted by individuals (79% of the number of very high speed subscriptions), it is still too weakly present in companies (32% of companies subscribed to high speed broadband at the end of 2020).

The report puts forward several explanations to explain this reluctance of companies: apprehensions and costs induced by the switch to another technology, lack of internal skills in electronic communication, poor readability of commercial offers, still dominant position of the incumbent operator, in the Orange occurrence.

The end of the copper network by 2030 should, however, change the situation, forcing companies to accelerate their transition to fiber.

Economic and social impacts

The fiber also has a beneficial impact for the territories, both economically and socially, knowing that it takes a minimum of three years to measure the effects. Very high speed thus generates a 7% increase in added value in the market sector three years after its arrival and 18% five years later. Employment in the market private sector increased by 4.3% four years after the arrival of the THD and by 8% five years later.

The arrival of fiber in a municipality is accompanied by other induced effects, such as the arrival of a younger population or better resilience to crises such as the recent Covid-19 (smaller drop in the number of jobs and the use of partial unemployment in particular).

If the advent of fiber in a territory increases or intensifies pre-existing digital uses, it does not radically transform them. France Strategy does not observe the emergence of “disruptive” use cases. In business, fiber has greatly increased the number of employees teleworking or using videoconferencing. On the other hand, it has not multiplied the capacities for innovation or favored the development of e-commerce.

At last, last but not least, the deployment of fiber has contributed to reducing the environmental footprint of telecom infrastructures. Less energy-intensive, fiber networks consume an average of 10 kWh per subscription compared to 35 kWh for copper networks. As with any technological progress, their deployment also has the corollary of unleashing digital uses, particularly among individuals with streaming VOD or online video games.