The 13.3 billion euros of injected public money showed their effectiveness in achieving objectives, according to France Strategy.
by Olivier Pinaud
In the years 1980-1990, the cable plan, which aimed to lay 10 million outlets in France, had turned to fiasco. More than 30 billion francs of the time (around 4.5 billion euros) had been swallowed up in a network ultimately little used and made quickly obsolete by the arrival of new technologies, especially ADSL. Launched in 2013 and about to end, the very high speed France plan (PFTHD), which promised to provide an ultra -fast internet connection to all French people from 2022, metropolitan and ultramarine, will not suffer the same thunderbolt.
“It’s a global success,” says Pierre-Jean Benghozi, research director at the National Center for Scientific Research and Professor at the Ecole Polytechnique, who chaired the assessment committee of this plan entrusted to France Strategy, the prospective institution attached to the Prime Minister. His report was submitted on Wednesday January 11 to Jean-Noël Barrot, Minister Delegate in charge of Digital Transition and Telecommunications.
m. Benghozi sees two main satisfaction patterns. First, the achievement of the coverage objectives. “In the mid -2010s, France suffered from a great delay compared to its neighbors” in terms of very high speed connections to the Internet, recalls the chairman of the evaluation committee. She was at 26 e European rank. “The plan made it possible to bring France back to the 12 e place. It is even number one for the only optical fiber”, he appreciates, even if geographic disparities remain.
Pulse for investments
From the end of 2021, 99 % of households and companies in the territory could connect to a very high speed, wired or mobile network. Added along the way, the objective of a generalization of optical fiber in 2025 also seems at hand. According to the latest arcep figures, the telecoms gendarme, on September 30, 2022, 33.1 million premises were eligible for an optical fiber offer, or 77 % of the territory.
Second satisfaction: management of public money. “There was no cost drift,” said Benghozi. Intended to launch the site in the least populated areas, therefore the least profitable for telecom operators, the initial envelope of 13.3 billion euros in public funding “was held”. The State has put 3.5 billion euros, the communities 8.8 billion, the balance having been brought by the European Union.
Above all, this aid system “has shown its effectiveness” by giving the investments of private operators. In so -called public initiative areas, telecom operators have invested 9.52 billion euros, or 42 % of the cost of the site. By adding the 13 billion euros in operators’ investments in very dense areas, the PFTHD mobilized a total of nearly 36 billion euros.
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