Orange France will soon commercialise its FTTH broadband packages in the public initiative networks managed by Bouygues' subsidiary Axione. The partnership follows Orange's announcement in March of its plan to offer fibre services to all rural networks deployed by third party infrastructure operators across the country.
Axione said that the arrival of Orange will mark an important milestone as it will enable households on its networks to become the first to gain access to the full choice of residential offers from all French fibre ISPs. In addition to Orange, Axione has already agreed deals with Bouygues Telecom, Coriolis, Free, K-Net, Orange's subdiary Nordnet, Ozone, SFR and Vitis' brand Videofutur.
Overall, 20 private and public-initiative networks are run by Axione, on a footprint that will reach approximately 6 million premises in the coming years. Among them, the THD42 project will be one of the first to see the arrival of Orange's fibre offers. Currently under deployment, this network has so far covered over 110,000 rural premises in the Loire department.
In related news, Orange has also announced that from mid-April. its FTTH broadband packages will be available to households and businesses reached by the rural network managed by Covage in the Seine-et-Marne department. Named Sem@fibre77, this network will bring fibre connectivity to over 320,000 premises across 415 municipalities.