France Telecom-Orange enters into partnership with Bouygues Telecom concerning the deployment of its optical fiber networks

Paris - France Telecom-Orange and Bouygues Telecom have concluded a partnership agreement to share Fiber to the Home networks (FTTH) deployed by France Telecom-Orange across France.

Through this partnership, France Telecom-Orange will provide a service for sharing its optical fiber networks in very densely populated areas* with Bouygues Telecom for the horizontal network segment leading to the foot of buildings. In doing so, France Telecom-Orange optimizes its deployment costs by sharing the available resources of its optical fiber networks.

As a result, France Telecom-Orange will enable its partner to benefit from its network coverage in very densely populated areas. Within the buildings, Bouygues Telecom will have to build its own networks or subscribe to available cable-sharing offers. In this zone, the partnership potentially covers 1.7 million homes.

In addition, outside very densely populated areas of France, Bouygues Telecom has subscribed to the wholesale cable-sharing offer for the terminal part of France Telecom-Orange’s FTTH networks. With this offer, Bouygues Telecom will potentially have access to 8.9 million homes.

France Telecom-Orange is delighted with this partnership, which marks a new milestone in the deployment of its networks and of very high-speed broadband in France by complementing the agreements signed with Free and SFR in the second half of 2011.

The agreement reinforces France Telecom-Orange’s FTTH deployment goals for France and is testimony to the constructive spirit in which it is cooperating with the other market players.

For local authorities, whom France Telecom-Orange plans to associate with these deployments, the partnership provides an additional guarantee for the coverage of their territory by networks that are open to everyone.

Announced in February 2010, France Telecom-Orange’s deployment program calls for an investment of 2 billion euros through 2015 to bring FTTH optical fiber to 3,600 municipalities (communes). This will provide coverage for 10 million households by 2015 and 15 million by 2020 (corresponding to 17 million homes), i.e. nearly 60% of all French households.


* The 148 largest municipalities (communes), as defined by French regulator ARCEP.

About Orange
France Telecom-Orange is one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators with 170,000 employees worldwide, including 102,000 employees in France, and sales of 33.8 billion euros in the first nine months of 2011. Present in 35 countries, the Group had a customer base of 221 million customers at 30 September 2011, including 145 million customers under the Orange brand, the Group’s single brand for internet, television and mobile services in the majority of countries where the company operates. At 30 September 2011, the Group had 162 million mobile customers and 14 million broadband internet (ADSL, fibre) customers worldwide. Orange is one of the main European operators for mobile and broadband internet services and, under the brand Orange Business Services, is one of the world leaders in providing telecommunication services to multinational companies.

With its industrial project, “conquests 2015”, Orange is simultaneously addressing its employees, customers and shareholders, as well as the society in which the company operates, through a concrete set of action plans. These commitments are expressed through a new vision of human resources for employees; through the deployment of a network infrastructure upon which the Group will build its future growth; through the Group’s ambition to offer a superior customer experience thanks in particular to improved quality of service; and through the acceleration of international development

France Telecom (NYSE:FTE) is listed on Euronext Paris (compartment A) and on the New York Stock Exchange.
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