France Telecom Pushes Broadband

PARIS -- "France Telecom is proactively committed to supporting the competitiveness of businesses in regions across France by accelerating the buildout of fiberoptic links in business and industrial parks. Our goal is to make very-high-speed Internet service available to all businesses," said Thierry Breton, France Telecom Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Breton announced Phase 3 of the "Broadband for Everyone" plan at a press conference at the offices of Servia Informatique, a computer services firm headquartered in the Jules Verne industrial park near Amiens (Picardy region).

Thierry Breton also told officials and business leaders from the Picardy region that France Telecom shared their belief that broadband access for businesses is a fundamental driver for economic growth and a key to sharpening competitiveness. He emphasized that the superior performance of telecommunications infrastructures has clearly proven one of the factors that makes France and its regions attractive to businesses and investors.

Supporting the competitiveness of French regions by making very-high-speed Internet access available in business and industrial parks France Telecom's major initiative involves some 2,000 business and industrial parks, home to 120,000 large enterprises and smaller businesses. All these companies will benefit from more attractive rates, and swift introduction of a broad array of very-high-speed services as their needs evolve.

An accelerated buildout plan calls for prewiring of these business zones with fiberoptic links. This will give businesses located in the zones access in the very near term to capacity of up to 100 megabits per second and even 1 gigabit per second for companies located in France's 20 largest cities.

The deployment plan for business and industrial parks will be optimized to address the priorities of local enterprises following discussions with all local stakeholders (including chambers of commerce and industry and different regional and municipal government authorities).

France Telecom SA