Orange subsidy to upgrade rural DSL unfair - Avicca

French local governments association Avicca has referred the central government and telecom regulator on the subject of state subsidies for very high-speed copper network rollouts. The association wants to amend the framework which allegedly discriminates heavily against rural authorities in the process of raising xDSL speeds, considered a 'paliative' to fibre deployment. Avicca president Yves Rome said that the value of potential public subsidy to France Telecom is well over EUR 1 billion, given that the operator estimates that its network core will require 16,500 sub-exchanges, out of a maximum of 30,000. This reinforces the incumbent operator's weight on the wholesale communication market, extending the lifespan of its network. The state aid was never notified to the European Commission and has been found to dissuade local governments from investing in private copper networks, according to Avicca. The organisation wants the central government to cover all costs related to increasing copper speeds, not local governments. At present, rural constituents are paying for copper upgrades when urban ones are getting fibre for free. Arcep estimates that it costs EUR 80,000 to EUR 100,000 to set up a sub-exchange.