Vandalism, sabotage, storm, forest fire, flood, earthquake…. Between malicious acts and climatic hazards, fiber optic networks are exposed to a multitude of risks. With immediate consequences. Cables severed by activists or poles knocked down by a tornado and there are immediately tens of thousands of individuals and private internet access and telephone companies for hours on end.
France is particularly vulnerable. Unlike neighboring countries such as Belgium or Germany, which have favored the burial of fiber, our infrastructure is based on some 500,000 kilometers of aerial networks. Telephone or electricity poles serve as a support to ensure the service of the cables. A choice which has made it possible to accelerate the deployment of fiber throughout the territory but which, in return, increases our surface area of exposure to risks.
Secure technical access, bury cables
After an initial risk analysis in June, InfraNum, a professional federation that brings together all players in the sector – operators, manufacturers, integrators, equipment manufacturers – launched, in partnership with La Banque des Territoires, an additional study on the resilience of fiber optic (FTTH).
In charge of this study, the firm Tactis first mapped the different types of risk, department by department, according to the forest area, the snow cover rate or the average wind force. He then outlined the priority measures to gain resilience.
Beyond burying the transport network, other actions are recommended such as securing technical cabinets and optical connection nodes (NRO) or moving the infrastructures located in flood-prone areas.
Adapt to the specificities of each territory
Based on this observation, Tactis outlines three scenarios whose investment costs are estimated at between 6.9 and 16.9 billion euros. By far, the burial of transport networks weighs the heaviest in the balance. The so-called floor scenario plans to bury 75,000 km of linear space and the ambitious scenario 210,000 km.
In between, the intermediate scenario plans to apply the minimum scenario to the departments at moderate risk, and the ambitious scenario to the 30 departments presenting the greatest climate and environmental risks. That is a burial of 115,000 linear km. Amount of the operation: 9.9 billion.
The firm recalls, in fact, that the program must be adapted to the specificities of each territory, taking into account risk areas, feedback from operators working on particularly accident-prone networks, the priority to be given to strategic sites (establishments health, emergency services, etc.) or the possibility of benefiting locally from civil engineering works already planned.
A ten-year project
Spread over ten years, these different scenarios represent an average investment of between 0.7 and 1.7 billion euros per year, which should be compared, according to the study, to some 5 billion euros per year that operators devote to the design of fixed VHD (very high speed) local loops.
Of course, the launch of this type of major program is not without economic interest for the sector. While the deployment of fiber in the territory is slowing down, particularly in the business market, it could serve as a growth relay for telecom players.
Depending on the scenario adopted, these projects would require between 2,000 and more than 5,000 full-time equivalents (FTEs) mobilized over the next ten years. It remains to receive the blessing of the State. ” Because if the diagnosis is local, the impulse must be national and whatever the option chosen “, say the two sponsors of the study.
