Category: Rural Broadband Access

Article – French language

Les résidences secondaires : sujet de discorde entre SFR et Orange – DegroupNews.com

My Comments

In the USA, some of the carriers who run wireless-broadband service have had to deal with an untested but real market in the form of the multiple-device user. This is where an account holder maintains multiple wireless-broadband devices like a smartphone, tablet or “Mi-Fi” router, Here, they are having to formulate the right plans that encompass multiple devices and have them gain access to larger bandwidth-allowance pools. It will take some time for these plans to be adjusted properly as the “bugs” and customer-service issues are ironed out in order to achieve the right multi-device plan.

But in France, a spat has occurred between SFR and France Télécom (Orange) over another untested but real service class that is facing the telecommunications aind Internet-service industry. This is a service that is provided to a secondary house like a city flat or a holiday house that is lived in on an occasional basis; and is considered important with France with 3 million householders owning such a place that is typically occupied 44 days in a year.

The accusation that is being raised by SFR is that Orange is working in an uncompetitive manner when targeting this market by offering a particular non-committed Internet package for this user class. SFR say that they can’t offer a similar deal because of their wholesale-bandwidth purchasing agreement with Orange.

There is a reality that people who use these properties do use a wireless broadband service due to its suitability to temporary setups and “there-and-then” setup requirements. But there is a desire by the carriers to provide the “full-bore” fixed broadband service, especially as part of a fixed-line telephony or triple-play package to these houses.

This is augmented more so by the desire for the competitive operators needing to pitch to this market and yield a “secondary-home” service that represents high value in a similar vein that is expected across France.

Personally, I would like to see other telecommunications and Internet-service operators that exist outside France looking at the “secondary-residence” user class more seriously and pitch telecommunications and Internet services that mean real value to them. This includes rental plans for services that are occasionally used such as 3-month / 12-month plans, plans that offer value to multiple-location services and, where applicable, services where bandwidth allowances for many locations are pooled to a larger allowance.

This also should encompass homes which are occupied on a seasonal basis like “summer homes” or houses that are let out to other users on a short-term basis. As well, it could encompass home / business setups where a person has a home office but also maintains a shopfront or secondary office for their business and they want the same communications needs replicated at both sites.

Article – French language

Les prix de l’accès à Internet suscitent la grogne à la Réunion – DegroupNews.com

My Comments

La Réunion is one of France’s “outre-mer” départements, best understood as a colony of that country. It is an island located in the Indian Ocean near Madagascar. But like most of these French colonies, there are a handful of telecommunications operators who are offering Internet service to the people and businesses on that island.

A major gripe that is currently being raised here is the cost of broadband Internet service on that island which is more expensive than equivalent service provided in France’s mainland. The common ask is €39.90 – €49.90 per month for 20Mb/s Internet service along with EUR€10 for regular telephone service. These services would also encompass 20-34 TV channels and inclusive calling to 50-100 destinations.

Other issues that were raised included poor service quality. But there is activity in Paris to encourage the operators in La Réunion and the other “Outre-Mer” territories to improve those services and price in a more keen manner.

Personally, I would like to see these areas increasingly become on-ramps to more of the communications links that are part of the Internet like the satellite uplinks or submarine / inland cable links. These can allow themselves and neighbouring countries to gain access to improved Internet bandwidth and give the neighbouring countries access to competing communications links.

This kind of work could then lift these “DOM” countries to a position where they can economically prosper and can expose their citizenry to good education.

Article

thinkbroadband :: Full fibre on its way to 9,000 premises in and around Chipping Norton

From the horse’s mouth

Cotswolds Broadband – Web site

My Comments

The action is now in the Cotswolds for a full fibre-optic rollout in the UK. The effort is organised by Cotswolds Broadband to provide and manage this kind of broadband infrastructure to Chipping Norton and its neighbourhood.

It will be done on an infrastructure basis where customers will be dealing with retail internet providers like what is happening with ADSL services in the UK. The technology will be a full fibre-to-the-premises service with the cabling carried overhead rather than buried underground. But one of the main efficiencies that is promoted with the infrastructure project is that the infrastructure company is locally owned, this allowing the money to go back in to the community.

A question that needs to be raised is whether the service will be effectively transparent for the retail customers? This includes quality-of-service for multimedia services as well as the ability to provide IP-based telephony at the necessary standard for useability.

What I would see is that the more country areas that become enabled for next-generation broadband, the better. This is to place these areas on the map not just in an agricultural way but to satisfy newer “tree-change” realities.

Articles – French language

France Télécom va tester le VDSL2 – DegroupNews.com

My comments

Most next-generation broadband deployments in France’s competitive Internet market are either FTTP (fibre-to-the-premises) fibre but Numericable are running with what is called an “FTTLA” fibre-to-the-cabinet setup. This is where the copper run to the customers is a short-run coaxial cable similar to existing cable-modem setups and is based on DOCSIS 3.0 technology.

On the other hand. VDSL2 telephone-line-based technology is successfully used in Germany and the UK for the copper run in fibre-to-the-cabinet setups in those locations. Now France Telecom are intending to try it in the highly-competitive French market for cheaper fibre-copper next-generation setups. This will most likely be used as another method of covering sparsely-populated outer-urban or regional areas where the cost to deploy would be prohibitive for a full-fibre rollout.

The reason they are running with this technology is its ability to provide a “fat pipe” over telephone cable for short runs. For example, as I have seen from the article, an 800m run of telephone cable could yield a download link speed of 25Mb/s on ADSL2 technology, but could yield 100Mb/s for the same distance. Similarly a longer run which could typically achieve a link speed of 1Mbps under ADSL2 could achieve 42Mbps with VDSL2.

As I have already known, these rates are dependent on the line condition between the street cabinet or exchange and the customer’s premises. Of course, this would be delivered under sub-loop unbundling which would be part of the call for a competitive Internet market in France. Similarly, there would have to be competitive access to those street cabinets so that competing Internet providers like Free could run their fibre backbone to the newly-created VDSL2 infrastructure and reach these markets.

Personally, I would like to see any fibre-copper deployment scenarios involving rural properties like farms be looked at so that there is a proof of feasibility for bringing next-generation broadband to the farmhouse door in a reliable manner.

Articles – French language

Le département de l’Oise déploie la fibre optique pour tous ses habitants – DegroupNews.com

From the horse’s mouth

Conseil Général de l’Oise – Local government for the Oise département

Le Très Haut Débit, Une Ambition Forte Pour L’Oise

Web Site

My Comments

In Australia, work is underway in some towns to have the National Broadband Network fibre-optic infrastructure in place. But the local government of Oise in France have put up a goal to have fibre-to-the-premises next generation Internet past every household in that départément.

This départément is located 25km north of Paris and is a mixture of rural and urban living as well as being home to some of France’s classic chateaux. But the main problem here is that a lot of Oise has areas that don’t “cut the mustard” for triple-play broadband. Here, you could just service basic Internet needs but wouldn’t service multimedia, a busy home or small-business network or triple-play Internet to the French competitive standard.

Technically, the network will be based on FTTH/FTTP technology and will be part of a buid-out of the TelOise fibre-optic network that has been already laid out. This places Oise on a par with most of urban France where there is a fibre-to-the-premises setup in place or being rolled out. The project will target areas where theire is substandard bandwidth first before covering the rest of the département.

This project will be supported with €265m worth of local public money, courtesy of the Conseil-Général who is the local government for the département; and will have a timeframe of around 15 years. I have touched on the issue of public money being used towards improving Internet service in this site as there has been a lot of conservative moaning about this practice in Australia with the NBN and in the USA with wireless hotzones set up by local governments.

What I suspect that would be going on would be a further push for some form of competitiveness in the way the service is delivered, as would be expected in France.

Whatever way I see it, France, like the UK, is an interesting country to observe when it comes to how Internet is delivered in a competitive manner and how local public money can be engaged in these projects.

Build out on TelOise network

Article

DirecTV to offer broadband to the boonies, teams up with ViaSat and Hughes Satellite providers — Engadget

My Comments

Another effort is taking place in bringing real broadband to rural USA. This time, DirecTV, who are one of two major digital satellite TV players in that market are working with ViaSat and Hughes satellite-broadband providers to sell their services as a bundled retail package. This is in addition to teeing up with the main telcos in the US to provide multiple-pipe triple-play communications services to that market.

The Hughes satellite broadband partnership capitalises on pre-existing business partnerships that Hughes Satellite had with DirecTV, by extending this to broadband Internet service.

One of the main problems at the moment is acineving a price parity to what most wireline broadband service providers would charge for providing this service. This includes the bandwidth allowable through the satellite setup as well as equivalent quotas that match most Internet use.

Another problem that will also affect DirecTV’s satellite-broadband bundling efforts is whether there will be more than one satellite dish needed to provide both the pay-TV service as well as the broadband service. This can be of concern when it comes to the aesthetics and cost of these installations and whether people will buy a bundled satellite-TV / satellite-Internet package or not. Here, I would like to see these setups proven to work using one dish and multiple antennas.

Similarly, an “SMATV” setup which services multiple TV and Internet subscribers in a multi-tenancy location such as a ski resort should also be assessed so that proper Internet bandwidth and DirecTV multi-channel reception can occur in these locations.

Article

At last, broadband in the boonies, but at a price | Crave – CNET

My comments

I have run regular coverage about the provision of real broadband Internet service in to rural areas and is something that I stand for as the author and owner of this site. Just lately, I have come across this CNET article about how Crave writer, Eric Mack had succeeded in bringing real broadband to his mountain home in New Mexico, USA.

He was detailing how the WildBlue satellite broadband service was treated as a costly rare premium service compared to the wider availability of satellite pay-TV service in that neighbourhood. Then he talked about the inconsistent provision of ADSL broadband in that neighbourhood by the local telephone company which works in a similar manner to Telstra in Australia or British Telecom in the UK.

Later on, he pointed out the arrival of an “open fibre” network that was laid by a local co-operative who was addressing the need of “real broadband in the bush”. The concept of this “open fibre” network was to allow any and all ISPs and telcos to make use of the fibre-optic infrastructure rather than it being for the exclusive use of a particular company. It is in contrast to the typical cable-TV infrastructure that is for the use of the company that owns it.

Then, in the last article, Eric talked of the possibility of mobile-telephony providers rolling out 3G or 4G mobile-broadband service to these areas. He summed it up very well in the fact that it takes a lot of work to get communications infrastructure providers to establish infrastructure to provide a decent standard of broadband Internet in to these areas.

I see this as a “chicken-in-egg” scenario that if you don’t provide the infrastructure, you won’t get “serious money” in to the neighbourhood in the form of industry, commerce or similar high-value activity whereas you wait upon the arrival of a significant population set and economy before you deploy the infrastructure. This can be more so with neighbourhoods that are outside the commuting distance of a major metropolitan area or don’t have a very significant core economy about them.