Orange is very excited about achieving its latest milestone of full fibre uptake, but there are still many people in France who have to sign up for FTTH from existing businesses or competitors. has signed up six million customers for its fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network and says it is connecting close to 10,000 customers a day. It's a great effort and one that should be celebrated. But the race to full fibre is not over yet.
Orange's chief executive says: "More than half of France's internet customers now use fibre at home or at work." According to Orange, by the end of last year it had deployed fibre in 63% of France's 29 million FTTH-eligible premises, using its own funds and in partnership with local authorities. 2021 saw a 20% increase in the number of homes, which seems to be a step away from its "leading European country" statistics. statistics.
The latest update from the European FTTH Council from September shows that France leads the European market in terms of the number of FTTH homes and subscriptions adopted in 2021, with only Russia performing better due to demographics. These figures cover the 15 largest FTTH markets in Europe. The Council expects France to maintain its position in terms of subscriptions over the next five years, but expects Germany to overtake it in terms of households passed.
In terms of penetration, France ranked sixth last year with 49.2%; Belarus and Spain topped the list with a distant second with 72.7% and 70.6% respectively.
Orange is therefore focused on the right thing: getting customers connected. If it is to help France reach the top of the penetration charts by 2026, it needs to maintain the momentum of registered users, which the FTTH Council believes will happen.
