Victorin Lurel

In fact, in Guadeloupe, Martinique or French Guiana, broadband internet is very expensive -- three times higher than in Paris. Socialist Guadeloupean President of the Region (a local authority in Guadeloupe) Victorin Lurel has just decided to fight against this situation.

In a recent press release, Lurel said: “In Guadeloupe in February 2006, the Minister of State Nicolas Sarkozy had promised to invest the resources of his ministry so that in Guadeloupe as well as in the rest of the overseas territories, broadband Internet be available at the same price as in France, with equal quality and speed.”

Four months after French Minister Sarkozy’s speech, Guadeloupe is still waiting for the Minister’s words to be transformed into actions.  The Guadeloupe region does not intend to wait longer.

In June, Lurel therefore went on a mission to Paris The objective was to meet the French regulatory authority for electronic communications and broadcasters (FARECS), the Council of Competition, the Higher Council of Audio-Visual and the Ministry for the Interior and Regional Planning.

These meetings are part of a regional action plan against the numerical fracture carried out by the Guadeloupe regional president.

According to Victorin Lurel, the real problems are:

• the disparity in the cost of broadband Internet offerings;
• the consequences of the high cost of high speed for the operators eager to launch multi-service offers: access to the Internet, unlimited free telephony and television on ADSL;
• the possibilities of routing terrestrial digital television cable to Guadeloupe;
• the scandalous prices charged for mobile roaming outside of Guadeloupe.

What does the action plan against the digital divide mean ?

In an email, Lurel recalled that “the local operators charge prices three times higher than those of France, because of the expense of access to the very high speed networks.  Under these conditions, the national French alternate operators such as Free or Nine Telecom do not seem to be interested by the development of the offers “triple play” (Internet, free unlimited telephony and television on ADSL) in Guadeloupe, a market considered to be not very profitable.”

As regards the arrival of alternative operators in Guadeloupe to develop competition, FARECS has undertaken to consult the telecoms provider Free in order to ascertain its interest in the French West Indies market.

It is in particular thanks to this operator that in France the first “triple play” offers were developed, including access to high speed Internet (8Mb/S), television on ADSL and unlimited free telephony.

The arrival of new operators on the market supposes the development of deblocking, however. In this respect, FARECS is now aware of the difficulties encountered in Guadeloupe by the small operators, where the established provider France Telecom does not make interconnection possible.

A FARECS mission will therefore focus on Guadeloupe in the near future, in order to check the insufficiency of capacity of the France Telecom distributors and whether national directives are being observed.