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On our radar
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Roland Lescure, President of the National Assembly’s Economic Affairs Committee
This committee oversee Arcep’s actions. It is currently in the process of examining the fact-finding expert mission report on digital coverage in France, whose conclusions are to be delivered in late September.
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News from around the world
Is global satellite about to become a reality?
One Web, Space X, Google and its Loon project… There are a number of projects using Low Earth Orbit (LEO) space technology to connect the planet to the internet. Their advantages:
- the ability to meet the connectivity needs of those areas poorly served by wireline and radio networks;
- enable much shorter latency for high-speed and telephone services than with geostationary orbit solutions (which are currently being used by broadband access services in France).
Questions nevertheless remain over the projects’ concrete feasibility. For instance, LEO spacecraft have a relatively short lifespan (averaging just over five years) which means they will need to be replaced on a regular basis. Frequency coordination would also need to be especially rigorous within the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to avoid interference between the different satellite constellations.
But the sector is shifting into gear. SpaceX met with Arcep Board member, Jacques Stern, to discuss this very topic at the Global Symposium for Regulators that ITU hosted in July. Arcep Chairman and BEREC Chair for 2017, Sébastien Soriano, also spoke with the teams from OneWeb.
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L'Arcep likes
HAND – Hackers Against Natural Disasters
After hurricanes Irma and Maria swept through the Caribbean, an entire network of associations mobilised to come to the aid of the devastated populations, notably on the islands of Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthelemy. Among them is HAND, which stands for hackers against natural disasters. This association of social-minded geeks, programmers and hacktivists has two priorities:
- to map disaster areas;
- and to help restore telecoms links as quickly as possible, notably between islands. To do so, HAND has sent some 30,000 euros worth of equipment (antennae for mounting radio links, digital radio, drones, Raspberry Pi) and enlisted the expertise of its members in the area.
Above all, the association wants to get a jump on future natural disasters. How? By training residents in those areas frequently hit by climactic disasters, so that next time they will be able to rebuild their communications networks themselves.
Find out more
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Arcep, telling it like it is
 Open data: Why? What for?
Since 2016, one of Arcep’s priorities has been to publish all of its quantitative and mapping data as open data files. Our ambition is to create a new regulatory lever to simulate competition in a way that benefits investment and connectivity in France. We firmly believe that adopting a State-platform approach that allows anyone to use the data, to produce tools and thereby become a citizen-regulator, is a vital step in modernising public action.
To make our data available to everyone, we are working with Etalab which is responsible for coordinating public data openness and sharing policies in France. All of the data are centralised on the www.data.gouv.fr platform.
This action plan involves every single Arcep team. As a result, where only operators’ operational indicators were available as open data five years ago, today Arcep is offering up a wide range of indicators, including KPI on: coverage, quality of service, number availability, postal market monitoring, along with consumption indicators via the Digital Market Barometer.
The hope is that, once reused, these openly available data will make it possible to develop new services and reveal new subtleties. We continue to work on enhancing available data, increasing their number, designing tools to facilitate their reuse and to help journalists, start-ups and local authorities to reappropriate them. And, ultimately, to use collective intelligence to inform users and bring them into the equation.
Laurent Toustou
Head of Arcep’s Data-driven regulation unit
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17 October at Liberté Living Lab
Launch of an alert platform
Have you experienced a malfunction with the services provided by your ISP, fixed, mobile, or postal operator? Starting on 17 October, you will be able to report these issues to Arcep, using a dedicated platform! By reporting issues to Arcep:
- your experience as a user will be given weight in the sector’s regulation and, along with Arcep, you will help incentivize operators to improve their services and further develop their networks;
- you will make Arcep’s actions more effective, by making it easier for the Authority to measure the scale of the reported malfunctions, and to take action with operators.
Arcep will be unveiling this new system and providing a status report on data-driven regulation at a press conference at Liberté Living Lab, at 9:30 am on 17 October.
Registration: com@arcep.fr
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27 September in Brussels
FT – ETNO Summit
On 27 September, the Financial Times and ETNO will be hosting a new edition of the FT – ETNO Summit in Brussels. The theme for this latest Summit: Digital Rulemaking in Times of Change. Arcep Chairman and BEREC Chair for 2017, Sébastien Soriano will be on hand.
Find out more
27 to 29 September in New Delhi
Indian Mobile Congress
5,000 participants and 800 exhibitors from around the world are expected to descend on New Delhi in late September for the first ever Indian Mobile Congress. This event is an extension of the Mobile World Congress, the mobile industry’s main event, hosted by the GSMA every year in Barcelona.
29 September in Tallinn
Tallinn Digital Summit
On 29 September 2017, the Estonian presidency of the Council of the EU, in cooperation with the President of the European Council and the European Commission, will be hosting the Tallinn Digital Summit, which will bringing together European Union heads of State and government leaders. On the agenda: cybersecurity, personal data, digitising the public sector…
Find out more
4 October in Paris
Technical meeting of the Forum for discussion between Arcep, local authorities and operators
The technical meeting of the Forum for discussion between Arcep, local authorities and operators will be held on 4 October in Paris. The morning will be devoted to a status update on the sector: the work being done on fixed market analysis, access to civil engineering and fibre rollouts. The afternoon’s main event will be a roundtable on “The Gigabit society: what networks will we see in the regions ten years from now?”
Find out more (in French)
4 October in Bucharest
ANCOM conference: Regulation 360° – from word to terabyte in 15 years
The Romanian regulator will be hosting its annual conference on 4 October, this year devoted to the theme: “Regulation 360° – from word to terabyte in 15 years”. Sébastien Soriano will be taking part in a roundtable on how the telecom market has evolved over the past 15 years, major milestones and the need for regulation to adapt to these changes.
5 and 6 October in Bucharest
Plenary meeting of the European Body of Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC)
Members of BEREC will be attending a plenary meeting on 5 and 6 October in Bucharest. On the programme: debates over the progress made by BEREC’s work on net neutrality, the report from the group analysing the possible impact that premium content and devices will have on the telecom market, as well as fixed-mobile convergence.
9 October in Paris
Arcep workshop on devices and their influence on internet access
Numa will be hosting the first of three Arcep workshops dedicated to the ways that personal devices (smartphones, tablets, computer) influence internet access. Aimed at developers, equipment suppliers, operators and app publishers, this workshop will be devoted to thinking about the ideal way to make apps available (access and business model). The goal: complete the initial analysis delivered by Arcep in a report published in June.
To register: terminaux@arcep.fr
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Duality and convergence
