Tag: Gironde

More steps taking place in enabling Gironde for real Internet

Articles (France – French language)

Fibre optique : la Gironde s’équipe mais Bordeaux prend du retard – DegroupNews.com

My Comments

In rural France, a département at a time for real Internet

Previously I have mentioned about Gironde being the location of a département-wide fibre-optic backbone rollout with an intention to reduce the digital divide that existed in that area. Now the rollout is underway with positive results coming through in that goal.

What is happening in Gironde

The fibre-optic trunks will allow more ADSL equipment to be in place thus enabling 7600 households who couldn’t to have Internet and 35000 more dial-up-modem or low-broadband households to have real proper broadband speeds.

There is public money involved with a public-private partnership with Orange. But the Gironde local government will persist on the project making sure real Internet service passes more households.

Delay with Bordeaux

But it is not all rosy at the moment. Bordeaux, the main economy in that area is being put back while the rest of the département is being covered with fibre-optic. Part of this is a presumption that there is full ADSL coverage in that city, but Bordeaux could benefit from next-gen broadband as much as anywhere else.

A main limitations is the competence of the bureaucracy concerning Bordeaux’s Internet rollout and this exposes the city to a two-tier risk as far as Internet service is concerned. This can be demonstrable with outer-urban growth corridors or resort spots that exist around the town. It can also extend to areas that may house lower socioeconomic classes But they hope to have Bordeaux covered with fibre-optic next-generation Internet by 2013.

Conclusion

In some countries, it may take a local-government area or a regional-government area to focus on Internet-enabling that area and it may have to be a public effort.

A fibre-optic backbone in place to improve Internet access in Gironde, France

Articles – in French language

La Gironde investit dans le numérique – DegroupNews.com

GirondeNumerique.fr – main web site

My comments

Gironde, a département in the south West of France, known as one of France’s key wine districts is doing major works to improve broadband coverage across its area.

Here, they have laid 1,060 kilometres of fibre-optic cable to produce a backbone for this service and are at the moment running it through the necessary tests. This network will provide 83 districts and 168 public buildings in this département with fibre-to-the-premises next-generation broadband.

This network will also be about making sure that an ADSL2 service capable of at least 2Mbps “at the door” will pass 99% of all households in Gironde. The remainder that cannot achieve this speed will have access to a two-way satellite connection, It will also support the competitive service provisioning that has kept the French Internet scene very lively and put a high-value Internet service in to the hands of most, if not all, French people.

This has been funded by Gironde’s local government with private input from France-Télécom (Orange). This local government is also using it as part of rolling out an improved online presence including the gradual provisioning of e-government facilities for its citizens.

I would encourage other countries to look at what the UK and France are doing for their next-generation broadband services because these countries have implemented strong mechanisms to assure a lively Internet-service marketplace. This includes technological and regulatory measures that have been put in place and the encouragement of local government rather than central government in the service-establishment phase.