“We can’t wait any longer!”. For months, Senator from Ain Patrick Chaize, who is also president of the Association of Municipalities and Communities for Electronic and Audiovisual Communications (Avicca), has been impatient. So, after repeatedly warning public authorities about the dangerous financial situation in certain public initiative (RIP) networks such as in Charente, he decided to “put pressure”he said, introducing the bill to the Senate this week.
The idea? The balancing fund is funded by “toll fees” paid by commercial telecommunications operators to deploy fiber networks across the country. “We need a tool that can recover money where operating costs are low to redistribute it where costs are high, and then determine an average rate that applies to everyone across the region”the senator explained during a press conference. A solidarity way to compensate for variations in wholesale prices between profitable areas and deficit areas.
Will commercial operators accept?
Because these accounts no longer exist in many areas. The network public initiative (RIP) has made fiber deployment possible thanks to state and local aid, where private operators are not interested in investing, and are therefore mostly in rural areas. But now that the network is complete, operational costs are often much higher than revenues, leaving these structures on the verge of collapse.
The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority is currently studying various parameters for calculating operational costs, having opened a consultation on this. According to Avicca, his party is then responsible for validating the advantages and disadvantages. “We are not inventing anything, systems like this already exist for power grids, for example”once again observing Patrick Chaize. However, I’m not sure this proposal will please Bouygues Telecom, Free, Orange and SFR. Because they could experience financial losses.
The bill will be discussed in the Senate on January 22, then brought to the National Assembly. Expect support from the government and especially from Digital Minister Anne le Hénanff. The Assembly’s Economic Affairs Committee, as well as the Banque des Territoires and the Infranum organization, which brings together telecommunications infrastructure producers, also support this.
