French incumbent service provider Orange says its fiber to the home (FTTH) network footprint extended to almost 12 million homes and businesses by the end of 2018. The company says its FTTH broadband infrastructure accounts for 9.3 million of these, while the rest derive from fiber broadband networks built by others to which Orange has access. France has strict open access requirements of FTTH infrastructure.
Orange says its effort have accounted for more than 70% of the fiber infrastructure constructed in France, thanks to an overall 9 billion euro ($10.2 billion) investment in broadband networks since 2015. That fiber includes 3 billion euros ($3.41 billion) for FTTH, the company asserts. Orange says it has deployed more than 20,000 km of fiber since 2015, with its footprint growing by more than 30% last year. The rollouts include undeserved areas, where Orange says its footprint expanded more than 40% in 2018.
Fabienne Dulac, deputy general manager, CEO of Orange France, predicted the company will reach the 3 million customer mark at some point this summer. According to numbers released by the FTTH Council Europe and IDATE last year, 14.9% of French homes had access to fiber broadband (see "European FTTH/FTTB subscriber numbers jump 20.4%: IDATE"). This put France 21st among European countries in terms of FTTH/B penetration.
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