Question 3725 — digital

Summary

Mr. Laurent Lhardit draws the attention of the Minister to the Minister of the Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty, responsible for industry and energy, to the worrying delays in the deployment of optical fiber in very dense urban areas, particularly in Marseille. Launched in February 2013, the France very high speed plan (PFTHD) aimed to cover the entire territory with very high speed by 2022. This deadline was then modified by the President of the Republic to coverage no longer in very high speed only, but in optical fiber to the subscriber (FttH), by the end of 2025. To achieve this objective, decisions no. as much, a list of municipalities constituting the very dense areas of the territory, in which the regulator considered, with the support of the main private operators, as “economically viable for several operators to deploy their own infrastructures, in this case their fiber optic networks, as close as possible to housing”. Around 7.9 million residential and professional premises in France, including all 530,000 premises Marseille, thus fall within these zones in which only private operators can intervene, exclusively with their own funds. Based on the most recent figures published by ARCEP (third quarter 2024), the objective of complete coverage of homes and businesses with very high speed is far from being achieved, approximately a year before the deadline set by the President of the Republic. The rate of premises connectable to the fiber thus amounts to a little more than 85% in Marseille (i.e. almost 80,000 premises remaining to be covered), with very significant disparities observed from one district to another (only 49% in the first district of the city). This city-wide figure is comparable to that of Nancy, but other large cities are also far from achieving the set completeness objective: around 88% in Montpellier, 90% in Toulon, Lille, Strasbourg and Toulouse, 91% in Nantes and Bordeaux. Furthermore, there is, locally as well as nationally, a very clear slowdown in the volumes of premises processed in very dense areas. Thus, in Marseille, only 17,592 optical sockets were made between the third quarters of 2023 and 2024. This pace has slowed since the start of 2022 to the point that, without massive corrective action, complete fiber coverage of communities in very dense areas would not be reached before the 2030s. This stagnation in deployments greatly penalizes citizens and businesses for whom a connection to high-quality, very high-speed internet is necessary on a daily basis for their digital uses. This penalty will become a sanction for these same residents and businesses if tomorrow Orange is authorized to close its copper network and therefore ADSL, including in the absence of optical fiber, knowing that in the current state ARCEP can only delay such a closure for a few months, but in no way prohibit it. For example, the operator Orange is considering the technical closure of this network in January 2028 in the 9th arrondissement of Marseille. However, the rate of connectable premises in the third quarter of 2024 is less than 93% and only 157 sockets have been made there since the second quarter 2024, 3,039 premises remaining to be connected. Residents of very dense areas do not understand the very significant delays in fiber deployment and do not accept alternative solutions with non-comparable costs and characteristics (FTTO, fixed 4G and 5G, satellite) that operators, and sometimes the State, intend to offer them. Not having the operator deployment schedules, the elected representatives of the municipalities in the zones very dense are disarmed to provide them with answers. It is clear that the dynamic of operators' investments in fiber optic networks, almost exclusively assumed by the company Orange, has today become largely insufficient, while only they have the right to intervene both from a regulatory point of view and from the strict state aid regime as set by the European Union. It therefore appears It is urgent that the Government and ARCEP take note of the current shortcomings of private initiative in very dense areas and jointly establish a new regulatory framework requiring operators to resume and accelerate optical fiber deployments, by imposing deadlines that must be respected. This new framework must at the very least prohibit and not just delay the closure of the copper network in the absence of optical fiber. Failing this, it would be appropriate for the State and the regulator to let the communities regain control of the entire digital development of the very dense area, including necessarily the sockets already deployed, in order to guarantee the completeness that private actors will not have been able to do. Also, he asks what measures are planned to ensure a connection in the shortest possible time. optical fiber to all premises in very dense areas and more generally to keep the commitment made by the President of the Republic to cover the entire national territory.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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