Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

France reaches 94.9% fiber coverage in 2026

cartefibre.arcep.fr

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 245 posts

Re: France reaches 94.9% fiber coverage in 2026

#121

Post by dguest »

cornichon622 wrote: post #107
zokier wrote: post #61

why is there such clear empty region in the middle? some regional governance thing? also why is Brittany so much worse than rest of the country, despite having relatively high pop density

These two regions are filled with a whole lot of nothing, especially the middle. That's not a reason to not cover them, but it's a reason to cover them after the others, 80/20 rule I guess.

There are two smaller empty regions in the east that are filled with a whole lot of mountains. I suspect covering them might be more expensive.

Re: France reaches 94.9% fiber coverage in 2026

#122

Post by P-Nuts »

ahartmetz wrote: post #65
harel wrote: post #27

Is that fiber to the property or fiber to the cabinet? In the UK I get FTTC which means the last bit from the cabinet down the road to my house is copper wires. My speed is bottlenecked by that. New builds and flats get services for the building giving them full fiber. My fiber is only as fast as my copper wire to the cabinet allows

I think FTTC is just called (V)DSL in most places. IME it's uncommon to call anything less than FTTB (basement / building) fiber.

In UK FTTC is called “fibre” and FTTP is called “full fibre”. I only have FTTC. To be honest it’s enough for my use cases but I will upgrade if FTTP ever becomes available.

Re: France reaches 94.9% fiber coverage in 2026

#123

Post by cm2012 »

malfist wrote: post #101
cm2012 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Gigabit Project (edit: should be BEAD) has allocated 40 billion since 2021 and still has not finished any last mile projects.

Why lie? The Gigabit Project is a £5 billion project, not $40 billion. It has delivered last mile interconnects to 296,770 residences. It's also a UK program and not a US program. The US has a similar program called BEAD, it has allocated $42B in funding, however, that is allocated, not spent budget. Build outs have only started this year.

I was referring to BEAD by the short hand name of gigabit, my b

Re: France reaches 94.9% fiber coverage in 2026

#124

Post by tuckerpo »

epistasis wrote: post #71
alerighi wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Italy we are at 78% of addresses covered. That doesn't mean automatically that one gets fiber. First at all, if someone doesn't need to download heavy stuff and has a good coverage a 5G SIM with unlimited data (something you can get for 10/15 euros a month) is cheaper than a fiber connection (that starts from 25 euros). Second a lot of people has still FTTC even if it has FTTH, mostly because FTTC offers a speed t…

> a 5G SIM with unlimited data (something you can get for 10/15 euros a month) is cheaper than a fiber connection (that starts from 25 euros). These sorts of prices are unheard of in the US, so incredibly low. Something has gone deeply wrong with US telecommunications.

Gone? It started rotten with Bell and hasn't gotten much better.

Re: France reaches 94.9% fiber coverage in 2026

#125

Post by O3marchnative »

AbsurdCensor wrote: post #81
bitmasher9 wrote: post #6

Over the last 10 years I’ve moved 5 times. Each time having a fiber connection with at least symmetrical gigabit has been a hard requirement. Looking forward I’m considering moving again for very fast networking where I can begin to stream videos in 4k 60fps to small groups from my home, as well as offering a semi-permanent home for mid sized files (500mg-50gb). The ability to download/upload large files without worr…

I'm incredibly lucky (even in the US) that I have symmetric 5gbit connection and can go up to 8gbit if I wanted (but I don't have everything wired for 10gbit so it doesn't make sense right now). I'd love to see more of that in the US, but know it's not happening anytime soon.

I've been considering upgrading from 1 Gbps to 5 Gbps. Have you noticed any significant benefits for any particular use cases?

Re: France reaches 94.9% fiber coverage in 2026

#126

Post by zero_k »

Lol in Germany, internet is soooo slowwwwwwww. I used to live in France, and Free (i.e. free.fr = kind of a bad choice of name) was absolutely demolishing the local big carrier (France Telecom?), but in Germany, there is very little competition to Telekom, so it's really bad.

Re: France reaches 94.9% fiber coverage in 2026

#127

Post by ricardobayes »

audidude wrote: post #57

It's awesome. I moved to France from Portland, Oregon this year. I went from 1gb to 8gb fiber for half the cost in France.

That's a pretty interesting move. Any other experience you are willing to share about France compared to Portland? I'm actually curious and have always considered Oregon to be one of the nicest places in the US.

Re: France reaches 94.9% fiber coverage in 2026

#128

Post by dolmen »

utopiah wrote: post #23

Yep... was on the countryside for the Summer in places so small they didn't even have a bakery, which in France matters. What did they have though? Optic fiber, high bandwidth, low latency, reliable and for a very low price. Honestly I think ADSL was already enough for most people, I mean non professionals, but now I think France has the infrastructure for a good enough Internet for the next few decades. I can't fath…

Bakeries are long gone in small villages which are out of main roads. You better be prepared to have a car to get your bread or to make it at home.

Re: France reaches 94.9% fiber coverage in 2026

#129

Post by ruined »

oliwarner wrote: post #120

It's pretty insane. Our family has a holiday home in a fairly mountainous region in central-southern France. Dwindling population, no major tourist activity, wine production. We'd long suffered the worst imaginable 56k but in 2018, the local ISP just ran fibre out to everyone . I think the current service is cheaper than the 56k was too, and far cheaper than any of the 4/5G options back then. What I mean (vis á vis i…

>Our area is never going to generate the return on internet alone

for the isp? maybe.

for the gdp? well, i imagine that a lot of highly paid remote labor would love to be located in rural France.

Re: France reaches 94.9% fiber coverage in 2026

#130

Post by testing22321 »

RiverCrochet wrote: post #22
testing22321 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really notice it with streaming? I have 80Mbps cable, and nothing has ever slowed down. If I download something over a couple of gigs I just get a glass of water and it’s done.

Do you have a data cap? The cable provider near me charges you $10 for every 50GB over 1.25TB monthly. A while ago they offered an "unlimited" plan without that cap at a higher monthly rate. I've never heard of a fiber connection with a data cap like that. I ended up moving to fiber eventually, it was cheaper for the same speed and the upload speed matched the download speed as well.

I intentionally get the slowest speed possible that has no data cap. Was 50, then it went up to 80 a year ago.
Post reply on HN