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.

Orange (NYSE: FTE)