PAU, France -- UTEL, Europe’s leading independent research and development centre for telecommunications systems, has completed the design, manufacture and delivery of equipment to retrofit France’s PAU City FTTH Network (14 districts). More than 55,000 customers and 140 sites are involved in the upgrade that will see the delivery of fibre to the home (FTTH) across the city. The existing network in PAU was a point-to-point design which was initially deployed in 2003. The upgraded PAU network is the first 100% optical fibre network in France and is being developed by concession owner Axione, under an agreement spanning 15 years. It is the only fibreoptic hybrid point to point and GPON network activated in France on this scale. Locally SPTHD (Société paloise pour le très haut debit) company has been created for the deployment, operation and maintenance of the FTTH network.United Technologists Europe Ltd. (UTEL)