President of the consumer association UFC-Que Choisir, Marie-Amandine Stévenin does not have harsh enough words to criticize the agreement recently reached between the State and Orange. In an open forum, she believes that “ “acts a virtual renunciation by the government to ensure that all consumers have optical fiber by the end of 2025.”
While the pace of fiber deployment slows down “by worryingly, and has even almost collapsed in large cities “, this agreement sends, according to her, a very bad signal while the national strategy, decreed by the President of the Republic, plans to achieve the generalization of fiber by the end of 2025.
As a reminder, Orange recently committed to Jean-Noël Barrot, Minister of Digital Transition, to achieve, by the end of 2025, 98.5% of optical fiber deployments in moderately dense areas (AMII), compared to 88% today. In very dense areas, the historic operator has signed for a deployment rate of 96%, still on the same deadline, compared to 91.8% today, all operators combined. This corresponds to 1.2 million additional households to be connected in the first case and to some 300,000 households in the second.
Will the historic operator keep its word this time?
While this “deal” constitutes progress, we are far from the 100% coverage rate. In its defense, Orange reminds through the voice of its new general director of Orange France, Jean-François Fallacher, that the last fiber connections will be the most complex. They will require civil engineering works, some of which will be the responsibility of the subscriber to pass the fiber to their home.
Doubting the operator’s word, Marie-Amandine Stévenin recalls that he already has a precedent. Orange was to cover 100% of intermediate zones – i.e. the territories between very dense zones and the most rural zones, which correspond to a third of households – by the end of 2022 at the latest, “ only about 90% actually were. »
Despite this failure to fulfill its commitment in these so-called AMII zones (Call for demonstration of investment intention), the operator was not sanctioned by the government, she regrets. The president of UFC-Que Choisir, however, forgets to specify that Orange, on the other hand, was fined 26 million euros by Arcep, the telecoms regulator.
A boost to Orange’s satellite offering?
Marie-Amandine Stévenin notes that, “calendar coincidence », Orange has just marketed a new satellite internet access offer aiming “ households that do not have a good wired internet connection “. “ Does this mean that by being less demanding with Orange on fiber optic coverage, the government is also giving it the gift of giving it a “deal” to market an expensive satellite offering? »she asks.
“Rather than negotiating falsely ambitious agreements with Orange, the government would do better to allow all consumers to benefit from a real enforceable right to very high speed, long requested by UFC-Que Choisir”, continues Marie-Amandine Stévenin. Note that Jean-Noël Barrot also mentioned, a year ago, the possibility of universal access to very high speed for all, at “ an affordable price » and with a guaranteed speed of 30 Mb/s.
Quality of service taken by default
Finally, the forum points out the quality of service in the deployment of fiber. Despite the commitments of operators in this area, “ the situation has not improved on the ground.” The number of disputes linked to fiber connection, reported to UFC-Que Choisir, has even increased by 64% in one year.
In this context, Marie-Amandine Stévenin welcomes “ concrete progress for consumers » of the bill from Senator Patrick Chaize (LR). The latter tackles the defects in optical fiber connections and offers new rights to users such as the right to terminate without charge in the event of connection failure or the right to compensation in the event of interruption of service.
Adopted in May by the Senate, this bill has not yet been placed on the agenda of the National Assembly, notes the Context website. Popular with local authorities, it has mixed support from the government and Arcep. The operators are, for their part, up in arms against this text which would neither more nor less call into question the success of the France Very High Speed plan.