France had 19.69 million high-speed and ultra high-speed subscribers at the end of 2009, up 10 percent in one year, according to preliminary statistics from telecommunications regulator Arcep. The total included 19.4 million high-speed subscribers, of whom 18.5 million were on ADSL, and 290,000 ultra high-speed subscribers, of whom 70,000 were on FTTH and 220,000 on fibre to the last amplifier (FTTLA), with coaxial cable for the terminal part. In the fourth quarter of last year, the number of ADSL customers rose by 470,000, while other high-speed customers rose by 36,000, FTTH customers rose by 11,000 and FTTLA customers increased by 7,000. Over 4.5 million homes were passed by a fibre optic network by the end of 2009. Alternative operators were renting around 560 km of France Telecom ducts to deploy fibre networks in around 20 municipalities around Paris and Lyon, Marseille and Grenoble. The number of buildings equipped with FTTH and connected to the network of at least one operator stood at 40,000 at the end of last year, up 11 percent over three months. Alternative operators were using 9.7 million wholesale lines from France Telecom at the end of 2009, 345,000 more than at the end of September. These included 6.41 million fully unbundled lines (up by 412,000 in three months), 1.31 million partially unbundled lines (down by 14,400), 1.97 million bistream lines – ATM and regional IP - (down by 48,000) and 64,000 national IP lines (down by 5,000).
