Off the wire
• Roundup: Kenya receives more tourists as security improves  • Roundup: Facebook should have removed sex video of woman who killed herself: Italian court  • Nigeria to reduce vehicular emission: minister  • UN warns of growing food crisis in South Sudan in 2017  • 26 drowned during Hindu festival in India's Bihar  • Full text: Explanations on draft interpretation of Article 104 of Basic Law of Hong Kong SAR(2)  • U.S. oil production in 2015 rise to new high since 1972  • Nigeria prepares for FIFA world cup qualifier against Algeria  • (Roundup)Kenya league champions eye continental glory  • Kenya forms special unit to combat cargo theft  
You are here: 　 Home

EU endorses French national broadband scheme

Xinhua, November 8, 2016 Adjust font size:

The European Commission, or the executive body of the European Union (EU), on Monday endorsed a French national broadband scheme that will bring high speed broadband everywhere without unduly distorting competition in France.

Entitled "Plan Tres Haut Debit", the plan involves investments of 13 billion euros (14.35 billion U.S. dollars).

With the scheme, all French households and businesses will have access to high speed broadband of at least 30 megabits per second (Mbps) by 2022.

The EU said support for broadband rollout in under-served areas to ensure a very high level of connection in the 28-member bloc is a key priority for the European Commission as part of its Digital Single Market.

The "Plan Tres Haut Debit" re-launched a previous scheme which was approved by the Commission on October 2011 and expired in December 2015. This scheme will fund local authorities' infrastructure projects, mainly to deploy Next Generation Access networks.

The Commission explained that the state aid assessment aims to protect effective competition by ensuring that public funding does not take the place of private investment and that other service providers can use the publicly funded infrastructure on a non-discriminatory basis. Endit