France to require apartments to come wired

PARIS: The French government said Thursday that it planned to require builders to install fiber-optic cables in new apartment buildings to increase the introduction of fast broadband Internet.

As part of a proposal to be voted on by Parliament "before the summer," the government will seek to make fiber-optic cabling a requirement for all construction projects of 25 or more apartments, said Luc Chatel, a government spokesman.

France Télécom, Neuf Cegetel and Iliad have said that they will invest hundreds of millions of euros in the coming years in fiber-optic networks. Chatel said construction of new fiber-to-the-home networks in France represented an investment of €10 billion, or $15.8 billion, over a 10-year period.

"The government's goal is to give very fast broadband a push in the back," Chatel said at a news conference in Chatillon outside Paris. "There's an obstacle to access, which is the entrance to the building."

The cost of installing optic fiber in apartment buildings would be included in the sales price, Chatel said.

"By 2010 we want all buildings of more than 25 apartments to be automatically pre-cabled," Chatel said. "It will be part of the requirements in construction projects."

The proposed law should allow all network operators access to buildings, Chatel said. Operators should agree among themselves whether and how to share local neighborhood switching nodes, and the government will leave it to French telecommunications regulator Arcep to deal with competition issues that go beyond building access, Chatel said.

June 4, 2011

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