Ducts and the last part of the local loop are the two bottlenecks...

French market is oriented toward fiber-to-the-home rather than fiber-to-the- curb or VDSL, making it different from many other European countries, she said. Regulation must tackle sharing of the last part of the loop and access to civil engineering works because operators have uneven advantages, she said. Some own the ducts and others have major investment capacity, and ARCEP doesn’t want to “turn back the clock” on competition, she said. Providing FTTH means having to equip private properties, and access to buildings is the main problem for all players, she said. Operators in major city centers are prepared to bear the costs but are running into opposition from owners in jointly owned properties such as condominiums, she said. Regulations don’t cover the situation, so ARCEP is trying to balance operators’ rights and obligations to simplify fiber deployment in buildings, she said. A central question is how to define “sharing” of the last part of a local loop that has been rolled out by several operators. All providers agree that base-of-building sharing is necessary but not enough for the start-up phase of FTTH, she said. The second roadblock is access to ducts, which changes the economic equation completely, particularly for alternative providers, Gauthey said. All operators are not on an equal footing here, she said, because new entrants can deploy only in limited cases such as Paris, where sewers can be accessed and they pass under every building. France Telecom’s ducts are available, though the old copper network must be removed in some areas to make way for fiber, she said, and that work relies heavily on engineering rules. ARCEP is negotiating with the incumbent over duct regulation, and France Telecom is expected to unveil an offer by year- end, she said. Dutch incumbent KPN is building an all Internet Protocol network to deploy VDSL, said Regulatory Affairs Head Jilles van den Beukel. It plans to provide fiber to street cabinets, dismantle most of its exchanges, and sell the buildings to fund its new network, he said. KPN plans to leave the last mile as it is, providing FTTC connecting to VDSL, he said. KPN is also investigating the possibility of FTTH in order to give users higher bandwidth, he said. Cable operators have 90 percent penetration in Holland, and KPN is losing 100,000 customers a quarter because its network can’t match the bandwidth offered by cable, van den Beukel said. Regulator OPTA is waiting to see whether DSL operators and KPN agree on moving to the new network, he said; KPN already has memos of understanding with the country’s three largest DSL providers. Deutsche Telekom is also switching to an NGN network and is talking to rivals about street cabinets and migration, said Iris Henseler-Unger, vice president of regulator BNetzA. If talks fail, the regulator will act, she said, but commercial settlements would be better. Van den Beukel was asked if the MOU process has slowed KPN’s progress. There’s room for more talks between companies, and regulation is needed only if they fail, he said. End-user interests must always be considered, he said.