The European Commission's state aid assessment of the French national broadband scheme has found that the public funds required are in line with EU state aid rules. ‘Plan Tres Haut Debit’, also known as ‘France THD’, aims to extend the availability of high-speed broadband (at least 30 Mbps) to all premises in the country by 2022.
Guided by the revised Broadband Guidelines of 2013, the assessment found that public funding is to be granted only in areas of ‘market failure’, where deployment is more costly and often not profitable enough to be spontaneously triggered by the market.
The subsidised networks, which are set to cover approximately 45 percent of the French population, will require an overall investment of approximately EUR 13 billion and will offer full access to all operators on a non-discriminatory basis.
