new pitched battle between operators

It’s like being back in the mid-2000s, at the height of the battle to open up the telecom market to competition. For several weeks, the sector has been torn over the price of unbundling, the rent that Bouygues Telecom, Free and SFR pay each month to Orange for the right to use its copper network in order to market ADSL Internet access subscriptions . At the end of 2022, France still had just over 9 million ADSL subscribers, including around 4 million with the three “alternative” operators. From 1er April, this price increases to 10.04 euros per month, against 9.65 euros previously. But Bouygues Telecom, Free and SFR, aligned in the fight, fear that this rent will soar even more strongly, in favor of their competitor Orange.

The anti-unbundling front was reopened with the publication on February 20 by the telecoms policeman, Arcep, of its « 7e market analysis cycle » for the period 2023-2028. Subject to a first consultation until April 3, this draft decision is central for the sector because it sets the rules according to which Orange will “turn off” by 2030, as it has planned, its entire network. copper, once all French households have migrated to fiber optics. To help the incumbent operator maintain these aging copper lines until they are closed and in order to encourage subscribers to switch to fiber through prices, Arcep is opening the door to the liberalization of the unbundling tariff.

Currently, this is determined according to the operating costs of the copper network. In the new framework, and only in areas where fiber is already accessible, Orange would only be constrained by a more vague obligation “non-excessive” price. For example, if the operator planned to increase its tariff by one euro, it should warn its tenants at least one year in advance. “But in reality, we have no idea what this new tariff would be”storms the leader of an alternative. “The copper network closure dynamic is in the exclusive hands of Orange, which is also a fiber player”, supports SFR. Without supervision, Orange could thus, according to the reasoning of the opponents, arbitrate as it pleases between copper and fiber and make its competitors pay for the unbundling surplus in the meantime.

An infrastructure “already extremely amortized”

Hence the black anger of Bouygues Telecom, Free and SFR, who do not understand why, as Olivier Roussat, the managing director of Bouygues, explained on February 23, they should pay more for a “infrastructure that has already been extremely amortized” by Orange. According to their calculations, between 1997 and 2030, the opening of the Orange copper network would have brought in more than 40 billion euros in discounted net cash.

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