Bouygues Energies & Services and its subsidiary Axione will work in partnership with Sobeca on the €97m contract for the Oise Department High-Speed Broadband Authority. The scheme is part of a plan aimed at providing “very high bandwidth for everyone, everywhere”, which aims to equip the whole of the area with a 100% optical fibre network delivering broadband to domestic subscribers using ‘fibre to the home’ (FTTH) technology.
In all, 136,000 FTTH sockets are to be installed outside the areas in which private operators have formally expressed an intention to invest in digital infrastructure. The project is now getting under way in the 21 towns and villages that will constitute the first year of deployment, with a target of approximately 14,000 sockets by the end of 2014. Priority is given to towns and villages whose current broadband Internet access is slow.
Bouygues Construction chairman and chief executive Yves Gabriel said: “Digital is now a major factor for driving growth in local communities and through Bouygues Energies & Services we want to be a leader in the deployment of these networks. This will also provide a considerable boost for populations which until now have been poorly served by high-speed broadband.”
In total, 10,000km of optical fibre will be installed in the Oise area in less than 10 years. The entire network will be deployed in two phases, each lasting five years. As a priority, towns and villages whose current broadband speed is below 2Mbit/s will be hooked up.
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