"French policy has nurtured competition among providers, advancing the country to the cutting-edge of broadband technology", writes BusinessWeek correspondent in Paris Jennifer Schenker in her article Vive la High-Speed Internet!
What a difference a few years make. In 2001, France had one of the weakest markets for broadband Internet access in the developed world, with less than a quarter of the penetration of the U.S. Today, it has sailed past the U.S. to become one of the world's most wired nations, with more than one in five inhabitants enjoying high-speed Internet connections.What's even more interesting is what the French are doing with their fast hook-ups. According to tech research firm Analysys, a remarkable 52% of broadband connections in France today are used for voice-over-Internet protocol, or VoIP, phone calls—far and away the highest level in Europe and perhaps in the world. In Britain and Germany, by comparison, just 6% of broadband connections are used for VoIP.
The Battle of the BoxesThe French also have gotten off to a fast start in Internet TV. Analysys figures 2.6 million households in France now get TV over the Net using Internet protocol technology (IPTV). That's about 10 times the number using IPTV in Britain, qualifying France as the European leader in video-on-demand services.
How did the land of wine, cheese, and luxury goods become a world-beater in cutting-edge Net services? Part of the credit goes to what could be called the Battle of the Boxes. Paris and other cities are plastered with ads for state-of-the-art home Internet gateways—with names like Livebox, Freebox, Neufbox, and Dartybox—that offer connection speeds of up to 28 megabits per second, plus voice calls, TV, and Wi-Fi. They usually come for free with a monthly broadband subscription starting around €30 ($41).
This and much more in the full article here.
Comparison of pricing for consumer broadband in Europe here.
