France Telecom-Orange, Bouygues ink deal on fibre deployment

France Telecom-Orange yesterday published a press release confirming it has entered into a partnership agreement to share its fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) networks across the country with rival operator Bouygues Telecom. Under the agreement, France Telecom-Orange will provide Bouygues shared access to ‘the horizontal network segment leading to the foot of buildings’ on its fibre-optic networks in very densely populated areas – i.e. defined by Arcep as the 148 largest municipalities in France. Within the buildings, Bouygues will have to build its own networks or subscribe to available cable-sharing offers. It is hoped the deal, which potentially covers 1.7 million homes, will better optimise fibre network rollout costs by sharing resources. Furthermore, outside those areas classified as highly populated, Bouygues has apparently subscribed to the wholesale cable-sharing offer for the terminal part of France Telecom-Orange’s FTTH networks. With this offer, Bouygues Telecom will potentially have access to 8.9 million homes.