Cables installed in an anarchic manner, cabinet doors torn off, customers disconnected…: the Senate is preparing to vote on Tuesday an LR bill to guarantee the quality of connections to fiber optic networks and strengthen the rights of users in case prolonged interruption of internet access. “This text crystallizes strong opposition between, on the one hand, local authorities and users, who are sometimes close to exasperation and expect concrete solutions, and on the other hand, commercial operators (…) who take a dim view of the intervention of the legislator”, underlines the rapporteur Patricia Demas (LR).
The French Telecoms Federation, which brings together national operators, including Orange, SFR, Bouygues Telecom and Free, called in a press release for “the greatest vigilance as to the effects that such a law could produce, contrary to the objectives of migration copper to fiber access, pursued by the public authorities”. However, for the author of the bill Patrick Chaize, the ambition of the text “is not to question the model” in place, but to frame it.
Optical fiber has become the main means of connection among all Internet subscriptions. Of the more than 34 million French people eligible for the network, 18.1 million had a fiber optic subscription activated at the end of December 2022, according to the Telecoms Regulatory Authority (Arcep). The government is displaying the objective of “generalization” by 2025, while the historic copper network of the operator Orange, the only source of access to the telephone network for several million French people, must be closed to the public. horizon 2030.
The bill, examined Tuesday at first reading by the Senate, provides two areas for improvement. A first part, technical, starts from the observation that since 2018, due to the acceleration of the deployment of the fiber, the reports from the field report numerous malfunctions or degradations during the realization of the final connections.
In question, “cascading subcontracting” allowed by the so-called “Stoc” model: from the infrastructure operator, who built the network, to the Internet access provider who calls on a technical service provider, who -even can still subcontract. And, despite commitments made by operators, “defects persist”, according to the author of the bill, which underlines the importance of the issue: 15,000 connections are made every day.
The text provides in particular for the establishment by the network manager of a “one-stop shop” to ensure the management of connection difficulties encountered by users. It establishes a labeling obligation for any party responsible for making a fiber connection and the delivery to the subscriber of a certificate attesting to the conformity of the work carried out with the specifications imposed on him.
It provides for the prohibition in certain cases of the “Stoc” mode in the “fibre zones”, that is to say the zones in which 100% of the premises are already connectable to the fibre. The text also strengthens Arcep’s powers of control and sanction in terms of the quality of fiber connections. A second point concerns the rights of users, in the event of a prolonged interruption of Internet access.
Beyond five consecutive days of interruption, the payment of the subscription would be suspended. Beyond 10 days, the consumer would benefit from compensation which could not be less, per day of delay, than one-fifth of the monthly price of the subscription. And beyond 20 days, it could be terminated free of charge by the user.
The government tabled 13 amendments to this text, to clarify some of its provisions. Heard on April 12 by the senators, the Minister in charge of the Digital Transition, Jean-Noël Barrot, had deemed it necessary to keep the “Stoc” mode even if it “is not without flaws” and had shown himself open to to “correct” it, in particular with the strengthening of the powers of Arcep.
