Numbericable's 100 Meg set-top box / Numericable modem de 100 Mega

I got home from work on Monday evening to find our new set-top box from Numericable. I was excited to install it and test the speeds. The television portion of the connection works just fine but the Internet does not. The modem does not assign me an IP address with DHCP. I had an external address momentarily and I was able to ping www.lemonde.fr but it disappeared after a power cycle never to be seen again. I am unable to register the MAC address of the box for normal connectivity without an initial connection.

I called Numericable 4-5 times yesterday (spending roughly EUR 10) without ever getting through to support. They put you on hold at EUR 0.34 per minute and then finally tell you to call back later or the line simply disconnects after 5-6 minutes of waiting. Interestingly, EUR 10 is the addition cost per month to have this triple-play package versus a simple data connection.

The most interesting thing for me was the lack of documentation that came with the box. You have to put in the village "frequency" but there was no listing or pamphlet that came with the modem giving frequencies by zip code. Luckily I knew where to find it on the Numericable site because I'd seen it before. I was also lucky to have my backup ADSL connection to use.

Finally, I upgraded to a triple-play plan with video, data and voice but there is no RJ-11 phone jack on the set-top box and no documentation. I wonder if this means I need to keep my old modem connected somewhere else in the house to use the RJ-11 jack it had.

If I've had this much trouble setting up a simple connection I can only imagine what this must be like for people who don't work in this field.

Slow broadband is becoming political in St Nom La Bretèche /L’Internet a haute vitesse devient plus important a St Nom La Bretèche

Happy new year.

I went out to my mailbox today and found a newsletter we receive in the village. It's called "La Parole est aux listes - Journal d'expression des groupes au Conseil Municipal de Saint-Nom-La-Bretèche". I always try to read through it and today I was happy to see some attention to the ADSL situations here in St Nom. In this issue the group "Saint Nom Tout Simplement" writes:

Suite à une demande pressante auprès du conseil municipal, Orange a obtenu l’accord d’implanter une antenne relais sur le terrain de football. Nous avions insiste pour qu’en échange et au préalable, la commune obtienne des engagements sur le déploiement de l’ADSL rapide dans la commune (3/4 des foyer sont aujourd’hui limites a 512 kbit/s). Malheureusement, cette facilite a été donnée sans obtenir de contrepartie pour l’accès a internet. Aussi, 4 mois plus tard, Orange revient très dominateur avec une proposition de couverture à 92% de la commune en ADSL rapide, moyennant une participation de la commune estimée a EUR 50k. Et c’est “maintenant ou jamais”. Le pouvoir de négociation a évidemment changé de coté. Quant on réalise que la seule alternative a l’internet 512k dans notre commune, c’est Noos/Numericable…, on comprend mieux l’attitude aujourd’hui intransigeante d’Orange. Dommage!

I'll try to give a quick and dirty translation into English.

Following a request in front of the Municipal Council, Orange received permission to install a relay antenna near the football field in the village. We had insisted that in exchange for permission the commune should have obtained promises that fast ADSL would be deployed in the community (3/4 of homes in St Nom are currently limited to 512 kbit/s). Sadly, the permission was granted without any accompanying promise for Internet access Also, 4 months later, Orange has come back in a very dominant position with a proposition to cover 92% of the village with fast ADSL as long as the village covers half of the cost of the upgrade estimated to be EUR 50,000. They say it is either "now or never". The negotiation power has clearly shifted to Orange. When we realize that the only other alternative to Internet access at 512 kbit/s in our village (it's Noos/Numericable), we can more easily understand Orange's intransigence.

I was happy to see that the broadband issue has been raised to all residences in St Nom through this handout. People do want better broadband. Noos/Numericable may say they are offering 100 Mbit/s but my connection has been off and on for the past 3 days and it will cost me EUR 15 to call them to report it. I'm using my backup ADSL connection for now.

I don't know what the mayor has decided about the EUR 50,000 but I hope he hasn't paid it. They will upgrade the exchange without the money, particularly if Numericable is sweetening their offer.

More importantly, there is another option. Our fiber-to-the-home plan is only for the 50 homes in our small area of the village but we could expand to other areas fairly quickly once we get a fiber line down to the local exchange. Just the fact that we're moving ahead with a fiber plan should hopefully spur Orange into upgrading their own offering here in St Nom.

I find it interesting that for not much more than EUR 50,000, the Mayor and the Municipal Council could run an open access fiber from the telecommunication exchange at the edge of the village all the way to the Mairie. From here different "residences" could tap in and access services from competitive operators over fiber. Orange should not have the bargaining power to demand village money to upgrade their own exchange. They just need some competition.

More on the Numericable offer in St Nom / Plus sur l'offre de Numericable a St Nom

Now for a bit more information that I've been able to gather on the offer from Numericable. They advertise 100 Mbit/s downloads but only 5 Mbit/s upload speeds on their offer. Not bad, although the upstream is important to me for the ability to telework.

I got a call today from an independent company to verify the change of my account - essentially ensuring that I did agree to upgrade my connection and pay more each month. They weren't able to answer any questions though about the connections such as when it would be available.

I have noticed that my connection is actually much faster now than it was just a few months ago. I don't know what kind of changes they have made but today I was able to reach 16 Mbit/s download from Speedtest.net. That's closer to what I should have already been getting with my "30 Mbit/s" connection I pay for now.

The graphic above shows the upgrade schedule for St Nom La Breteche on Numericable's website. Cities with 100 Mbit/s are marked with the year of the upgrade. Those in the process of being upgraded are marked with one of the codes on the bottom right showing which quarter or semester the upgrade should happen. Interestingly St Nom isn't even given a timeline for a fiber upgrade.

A large part of our village doesn't even have cable coverage so I wonder if the headend for our residence is located elsewhere.

I'll update as I find more information. However, with a limit of 5 Mbit/s upstream I'll still go ahead with the investment.

Meeting with head of the association for our residence / Parler avec le president de notre residence

Saturday I walked down to talk to the head of our residence association about the fiber plan. He was very open to the idea of the project and we talked for about 30 minutes about what I think we should do. He said that he'd allow me a few minutes to make my case at the association meeting on June 13th.

In some ways it may be an uphill battle. The association has had trouble before convincing everyone that now is the time to redo the road. There seems to be a split among the younger residents (for the repairs) and older residents (against).

While we were talking he said that he could understand why I would want to put in the network but that the connection he has now is sufficient for their family. The mayor said the same thing when I met with him.

I think this highlights a challenge for all municipal or local rollouts. We don't appreciate what high-speed broadband can be used for when we haven't had access to it at home. It reminds me of a conference I attended a few years back where someone stood up and said that his software company of 10-15 people did just fine sharing an 64 kbit/s connection. There was an audible gasp in the room.

In these cases I typically explain how much bandwidth is required for one HDTV stream (10 Mbit/s). However, there are other applications I think will have an even larger impact on our everday lives. One of these will likely be teleworking. Sure, it hasn't panned out yet but all the new focus on reducing carbon emissions is bound to make it a more attractive option in the future.

Luckily the cable company Noos has done me a huge favor with the association president and others in the village. There is this rage directed at the company that lurks beneath the surface here among its subscribers. I've never seen anything like it with a company before. It's not just our village either. Noos was recently put under surveillance by the DGCCRF (Competition and Consumer Fraud Department of the Finance Ministry). The president of the association said that while his connection worked well that he had lots of difficulties with them over billing.

Noos is making selling this idea much easier.

DSL progress in St Nom? / Progrès de DSL à St Nom?

I rode the train home with two of my friends from the residence today (Patrick and Pascal). We talked about the project a bit and Patrick explained that France Telecom was working on building a large exchange (NRA) not too far from where we live, just across from the current (unused) exchange. The current exchange is very small (about the size of 2 refrigerators next to each other) and only serves business clients. However, he said that the new exchange is under construction just across the street from the current one and that it would be online in October. That would mean that our broadband options could increase dramatically around that time.

This is something I'd really like to speak with the Mayor about because it may have implications for the fiber project. Even if they did upgrade our DSL I think it would be crazy not to lay fiber down if we are re-doing the roads.

Patrick also explained that Noos, the cable company, has ducts in the street that maybe we could use. I figure it's probably going to be easier if we simply lay our own PVC pipe but it's something I'm going to look into. I was encouraged that both Patrick and Pascal seemed excited about the project.

Intro: The project / Intro: Le projet

I'm a telecommunications economist in Paris and I spend a lot of time thinking about and using broadband. We've chosen to live in a beautiful area of southwest Paris but one which has limited broadband options. In fact, broadband is terrible for everyone in our village. The incumbent operator (France Telecom) hasn't upgraded our own exchange for DSL and that means that people in the village are connected through one of two towns, each roughly 5 km away.

I subscribe to broadband via DSL and cable. At 4.5 km from the DSL exchange I receive 1 Mbit/s via the competitive operator Free - too slow for me to take advantage of their IPTV offer for example. I also subscribe to Noos for cable Internet. I pay for a 30 Mbit/s connection but receive only 3 Mbit/s - and even that is traffic shaped. Even 200 euros of calls to the helpline at 34 cents a minute hasn't solved the problem. I am not alone. It seems that almost everyone I speak with here has similar problems and people are getting fed up.

There is talk around town that France Telecom has offered to upgrade the exchange if the town will pay the costs (roughly EUR 50K). I say no. We're going to build this network ourselves. We are going to bring our own broadband to our homes.

Our goal is simple. We want a fiber to the home network capable of gigabit speeds which will be open to services from any operator. I've spent enough time writing about "open access" networks and infrastructure-based competition at work. Now it's time to get down and dirty and build one myself.

I've decided to keep a journal of my experiences along the way in case someone wants to replicate a similar rollout. This certainly won't be the first of it's kind. That honor probably goes to Måttgränd, Sweden. I'll be contacting them shortly for advice. However, I hope this project will show whether it is indeed possible for a small provider to roll out FTTH without economies of scale.