Taken from The Broadband Coverage in Europe 2023 Report - a study prepared for the European Commission DG Communications Networks, Content & Technology
by OMDIA and Point Topic Ltd.
National coverage by broadband technology
Since achieving universal fixed broadband coverage at national and rural level in 2017, operators in France have focused on improving the availability of the faster broadband technologies. When considering fixed Very High Capacity networks which have a potential to deliver gigabit speeds (FTTP & DOCSIS 3.1), France has lagged below the EU average, but the gap has been narrowing and in 2023 France overtook the EU average. Overall coverage for this metric increased by 8.0 p.p. in the year to June 2023 to reach 81.4% of households, 2.6 p.p. ahead of the EU average. At rural level France also surpassed the EU average, with fixed VHCN coverage reaching 64.6%, driven by the government’s national broadband plan. This is an increase of 18.7 p.p. since 2022, a figure surpassed only by Estonia, Poland and Cyprus.
There are no DOCSIS 3.1 service available in France, as SFR has elected to upgrade directly to FTTP instead. Therefore coverage of the fixed VHCN (FTTP & DOCSIS 3.1) category is equal to FTTP coverage. These figures are also equal to the reported BEREC-defined VHCN coverage, indicating that the only technology in France which conforms to the BEREC definition of VHCN is FTTP.
By the end of June 2023, NGA broadband services were available to 86.2% of French households, including 73.2% of rural homes.
Among other technologies, DSL remained the most widespread service in France, with 97.3% of homes passed (down marginally from 2022), while VDSL coverage grew fractionally to 16.6% of households. Coverage of DOCSIS 3.0 also fell marginally, reaching 19.7% of homes passed. As French operators have focused on the deployment of FTTP rather than upgrading existing networks, DOCSIS 3.1 and VDSL2 Vectoring both remained absent from the French market as of mid-2023. Use of FWA technology is encouraged by the French government and offered by all four main French operators17. Coverage at mid-2023 was near-universal, reaching 99.0% of households.
The major mobile operators all launched 5G services in the fourth quarter of 2020, and by June 2023 coverage had reached 93.2% of households nationwide, an increase of 4.4 percentage points. 5G services using the 3.4–3.8 GHz band were available to almost two thirds of French households (64.8%).
DSL remained the most widespread fixed broadband technology in rural areas, despite the strong growth of FTTP and a fall of 0.6 p.p. since the previous year. France recorded one of the highest rural DSL coverages in the study and performed 31.4 percentage points above the EU average. VDSL also remains an important technology, passing 25.2% of rural homes, up slightly from the previous year. Cable modem DOCSIS 3.0 coverage in rural areas is minimal, while rural areas are the main beneficiaries of the French state initiative promoting FWA, and coverage is thus much higher than the EU average, reaching 97.3% of households.
Since launch in 2020, 5G coverage has grown to reach over nine in ten (91.2%) of rural households, 17.5 p.p. ahead of the EU average. 5G coverage using the 3.4–3.8 GHz band also expanded in the year to 2023. Coverage reached 11.6% of rural households, compared with 3.5% the previous year, and 15.2% for the EU as a whole.
Regional coverage by broadband technology
Most parts of France achieved fixed VHCN (FTTP & DOCSIS 3.1) coverage of 65%–95% in 2022, with only seven departments surpassing this – Paris, Yvelines, Hauts-de-Seine, Pas-de-Calais, Aisne, Oise, and Corrèze. Only one department failed to reach the 35% threshold – the overseas department of Mayotte – and a further twenty failed to reach 65%.
Since there are no DOCSIS 3.1 services in France, the FTTP coverage is identical to coverage for the fixed VHCN (FTTP & DOCSIS 3.1) combined category.
In rural areas, nine departments achieved fixed VHCN (FTTP & DOCSIS 3.1) coverage of greater than 95%, up from only four in the previous edition of the BCE study. Aided by the government’s rural broadband programme, an additional 21 departments passed the 35% threshold during the year to June 2023.
The following broadband coverage levels were recorded in French regions outside mainland Europe:
Data tables for France
Note: The 2023 figures represent the state of broadband coverage at the end of June 2023. The 2022 (end of June) and 2021 (end of June) figures are drawn from the previous studies conducted by IHS Markit, Omdia, and Point Topic.
All restatements are highlighted in italics.
Taken from The Broadband Coverage in Europe 2023 Report - a study prepared for the European Commission DG Communications Networks, Content & Technology
by OMDIA and Point Topic Ltd.
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