Speechless. And excited.
At last, one of the most liberalized and competitive markets for Internet access in Europe, France, is catching up with speeds available today in Asia, in places such as Korea.
Free, the ISP part of the Iliad group (they gained 4,49% today on the French stock market), announced a new offer on the next version of ADSL technology, ADSL2+: 15Mb/s download speed, 1Mb/s upload speed. All for the same price they have always sold their access for, 30€/month.
They first started selling 512Kb/s at 30€, then 1Mb/s, then 2Mb/s, then 5Mb/s, and now 15Mb/s... Along the way they added VoIP over a year ago, and over 100 TV channels through a great platform, their CPE, the Freebox, now in version 4. It also has a PCMCIA slot to enable Wi-Fi functionalities. Next in line should be a PVR functionnality and dual channel capability like the TiVo devices!
Very bright strategy of innovation at the same price point, leapfrogging competition all the time. I wonder how the cost structure changes along the way...
At the EBG conference today (Mcihaël is the man on the far right), Michaël Boukobza, Free's deputy general manager (and only 29!), reminded us that they have 768K subscribers (broadband), of which approx 270K could receive TVoADSL, and of which 200K watched a program regularly. Do the maths...
In the meantime, I'm dumping my current Internet provider, cable operator Noos, is outrageously still charging me 40€/month for a 512Kb/s access. Shame on them.
Update: the Journal du Net is running a story dated tomorrow on this new market move.
