Well connected

Fast broadband is becoming more readily available in France and providers are making life much easier for home and gîte owners, says Andrew Holford

- Andrew Holford

Because many consider it to be essential, now I have had broadband installed, my property has undoubtedly increased in value.”

It wasn’t until this was said to me by a client a few months ago, a chartered surveyor who I had first met some 30 years previously, that I appreciated just how important broadband access had become.

When my client and I first met, my mobile was a handset attached to a briefcase full of electronics that was then connected to my car’s battery. When travelling home from France on the Townsend Thoresen overnight ferry, my wife would regularly force me to drink yet another (very) large scotch, just to ensure we did not exceed our allowances to avoid a large customs bill.

These were challenging times for telecommunications, but, in reality, we didn’t complain. It was an adventure. Fast forward a generation and it seems change now occurs in months, not decades.

Until only a few years ago, installing broadband in France required a phone line, one engineer for your home and another from France Telecom for everything up to your outside wall. Only then could you connect to broadband, the speed of which still depended upon what was available and how many properties were trying to connect.

Then came Plan France Très Haut Débit, the massive state-led investment in French broadband. Today, fast broadband is quickly becoming more available in France than in the UK. Phones are all becoming VoIP (voice over internet protocol) and ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line) is being replaced by fibre.