France now requires fiber prewire in new multi family construction

In the race to find affordable, highly usable broadband, it’s we Americans, not the French who are like the bumbling inspector from the Pink Panther movies. France is now requiring fiber prewire in new multi family units. We’ve never been in favor of heavy handed government regs, but it’s clear that the French regard FTTP as much of a utility as water or electricity. The American Clouseau is still unclear on broadband penetration stats and is searching. Never mind classifying FTTP broadband as an essential public utility he’s too inept to understand how important it is.

While we applaud like lobotomized lab chimps at the fact a handful of people can now get 50Mbps/5Mbps from Comcast for $150 in 2008, the government of France took our now-scrapped concept of local loop unbundling and line sharing and developed a highly competitive broadband market. In that market, competition has driven some providers to offer 100Mbps/50Mbps fiber service, VoIP and IPTV for $40 a month.

As of this week, France is now taking the added step of requiring that all new apartment builds be pre-installed with fiber optics. “The government’s goal is to give very fast broadband a push in the back,” says government spokesman Luc Chatel, who in the States would be run out of town for such clearly inflammatory and evil commentary. The law will only apply to apartment buildings larger than twenty-five units. (Broadband Reports)