Neuf Cegetel takes over the market for HLM (Council Housing) in Paris

Following a tender from the city of Paris, fulfilled in the last quarter of 2007 and won by Neuf Cegetel, the latter pledged to install 100000 (100Mb) fiber optic Internet access in social housing projects.
The tenant must pay a symbolic subscription of 1 Euro HT for an Internet speed up to 512 Kbps, 18 channels of TNT and a telephone subscription to receive calls and to call emergency numbers and some social services.
Of course, this paltry sum is far from covering the cost of installation and maintenance of the lines, but the company is hopeful to that a percentage of
those subscribers will pay for superior benefits that will ensure a return on investment. If you are surprised to see this company winning the contract when
competing with Free and especially Orange, it should be noted that its technical choices for setting up fibre optics are cheaper. Indeed, the fiber stops at the bottom of the building, the rest is copper wires and SDSL (Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line) technology. SDSL has the same up-speed as down-speed but is typically much slower than ADSL (72Kbps to 2320 Kbps for SDSL, 102400 Kbps -- 100 Mb -- for ADSL). SDSL conflicts with voice (ADSL does not), so we will have to see how Neuf Cegetel will provide a voice service over SDSL (maybe proprietary telephone equipment).