--France to expand fibre optic network in 2011

Internet Business News
02-04-2011
--France to expand fibre optic network in 2011

INTERNET BUSINESS NEWS-(C)1995-2011 M2 COMMUNICATIONS

4 February 2011 - Eric Besson, French minister of industry and digital economy, expressed on Thursday hope that 2m French households will have super-fast broadband connection by end-2011.
At end-December 2010, one million households had fibre optic access compared with 960,000 at end-September 2010 and 500,000 at end-2008.

Currently, France ranks 15th among European countries in terms of households with access to very high-speed Internet.

Besson has welcomed the efforts of France Telecom (EPA:FTE) which plans to pump EUR2bn (USD2.7bn) into the deployment of fibre optic network in the period 2010-2015.

The company plans to equip with fibre optic cables some 3,600 communities in France by 2015.

The telecoms operator is ready to invest another EUR2bn between 2015 and 2020. Thus, the group hopes that 15m households in France will have access to the optic fibre network.

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(Copyright M2 Communications, 2011)