Copper switch-off, fibre take-up and ULL tariffs in France

The fibre roll-out in France is advanced and is committed by operators and Public Private initiatives for more than 92% of all access lines for 2025. But there still is a demand gap between the fibre access lines already deployed and those in operation. Neither a clearly defined strategy nor an appropriate schedule to switch-off the copper access lines exists as of now. Another precondition for completely switching-off the copper network completely is to migrate the voice telephony customers from the old PSTN technology network towards an All-IP (VoIP) network. This process has not been completed in France too. The study investigates the state of these migrations in France and analyses the regulatory means taken so far and discusses and proposes alternative national regulatory means supporting it. This includes pricing methodologies like "Wedge-Pricing" and organisational means defining "fibre readiness" of areas and schedules for migrating from PSTN to VoIP and from copper to fibre. The study was mandated by Iliad SA and had been used in April 2020 as one input into the national market definition consultation of ARCEP, the national regulatory body of France.