Fiber optics is the latest and most advanced technology available for providing high-speed internet with exceptional speeds. If you're considering connecting your premises to fiber optics, you'll first need to make sure you're eligible. Also, not all rooms are currently accessible. Learn how by reading our post!
How do you know if your address is eligible for fiber optics?
In France, the deployment of fiber optics is taking place step by step, from street to street, from lot to lot, from city to city. Thus, the government has ensured fiber optic coverage for all by 2025. ARCEP estimates that by March 31, 2022, 30.8 million buildings, or 72% of buildings, will be connected to fiber optics.
More than 5 million homes will be connected to fiber optics in 2021 (a 23% increase in FTTH eligibility).
A large proportion of the most densely populated cities and metropolises have already been connected to fiber optic cables (up to 88%). But there is still a long way to go: Some rural areas are more difficult to connect to fiber optic cables because they are located in rural areas (49% of premises covered).
As a result, some households still haven't benefited from this technology. The best way to determine whether your home is properly connected is to have a fiber optic test performed. Your fiber optic eligibility can be determined by your address or landline number.
What are the benefits for me? You don't need to check your eligibility on each internet service provider's website, and you can easily compare internet box prices and rates.
Which operators offer fiber optic service?
Using fiber optics requires significant financial , technological, and human resources. By 2025, the entire population should have access to a high-definition internet connection if it is implemented gradually, region by region. Telecom operators in France offer a wide variety of fiber optic packages.
Four of them—Orange, Free, Bouygues Telecom, and SFR—are accelerating their fiber deployment. Services , payment, equipment... box subscriptions come in several flavors, with prices varying accordingly.
Orange fiber
Orange, France's leading internet service provider , has 29 million homes with fiber optics. Orange's fiber optic network is very fast, offering bandwidths up to 2 Gbps. With this test, you can find out what credit level you're eligible for with Livebox fiber offers.
Fiber at Free
Today, fiber optic broadband is available in 27 million homes across the country thanks to FreeFiberTM technology . Free fiber is capable of supporting download speeds of up to 8 Gb/s and upload speeds of up to 700 Mb/s. All Freebox Fiber offers have a theoretical speed of at least 1 Gb/s .
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SFR fiber
Today, more than 27 million homes are eligible for SFR fiber or cable. SFR's very high- speed broadband offers excellent performance. It guarantees download speeds of up to 8 Gbps and upload speeds of up to 1 Gbps. Thanks to the eligibility test, you can find out the speed you can benefit from with SFR Fiber boxes .
Bouygues Telecom fiber
Bouygues Telecom markets more than 25.7 million optical lines. Bouygues Telecom's fiber optic network is widely available in both urban and rural areas. The speed of Bbox Fiber offers depends on the subscription chosen (between 400 Mb/s and 2 Gb/s).
Why choose fiber?
It's no myth: fiber optics is the fastest technology available today, with an internet connection 500 times faster than ADSL or VDSL2. While broadband internet maxes out at 95 Mb/s in the best case scenario, the minimum speed of a fiber box ranges from several hundred megabytes to a maximum of 8 Gb/s (at Free and SFR in particular).
Fiber optics also guarantees very high upload and download speeds. This means very fast download speeds: no more downloads that take several hours! Saving photos and videos, downloading large files... fiber allows these tasks to be processed almost instantly.
This connection speed is a boon for tech-savvy internet users. With fiber optics, simultaneous use is no longer a problem, and you can use a computer, TV, and smartphone simultaneously without compromising connection stability. Online gaming, video streaming, social media, file downloads, and television... ultra-high speeds allow you to do everything without compromise.
Ideal for teleworking, optical fiber is also perfect for digital entertainment , particularly for videos and TV thanks to streams broadcast in ultra high definition (4K).