The 2nd edition of the Fiber Trophies in the Landes highlighted the involvement of local players in the adoption of optical fiber. The opportunity to address the end of the copper network (and therefore ADSL), a progressive operation which will start in the department at the end of January 2026. We decipher the timetable and the challenges of this major project, inseparable from the hiccups linked to fiber .
Around 70 elected officials attended the Fiber Trophies in Landes, an opportunity to discuss the problems they may face in their municipality with the deployment of optical fiber. © Élodie Vergelati
It was in front of an assembly of extremely concentrated, and sometimes worried, elected officials that the respective directors of Orange copper, Sydec and the private operator took their seats on November 14, in a lounge at the Stade Monois Rugby. Altitude Infra. On today's menu, a crucial subject for all the mayors of the small Landes municipalities: the planned end of the copper network, which still provides certain households with fixed telephony and ADSL internet, in favor of optical fiber, in accordance with the French national plan very high speed which aims for a fully fiberized country by the end of 2025. In Landes, four years after the launch of fiber deployment, Laurent Civel is pleased with the results. “In March 2024, if I take the figures from Arcep, the only valid authority for statistics, we were at 85% fiber coverage rate in the Landes territory, with peaks in certain places which exceed 95%, even 98%. For Sydec, 115,000 outlets were built in four years, 118,000 outlets for Altitude Infra,” summarizes the general director of the Landes municipalities equipment union. In detail, this public-private partnership between Sydec and Altitude Infra has enabled the deployment of more than 230,000 so-called eligible sockets. This means that they can be connected but are not necessarily connected. Indeed, the fiber penetration rate in the Landes is 51% (source: Altitude Infra and Sydec). Half of the sockets are actually connected.
The end of copper from 2026
The challenge for the next few years is to achieve the objective that 100% of Landes residents are not only connectable but also connected to optical fiber, before ADSL becomes obsolete. Because the removal of the copper network, historically owned by Orange, meets a precise timetable and a geographical logic of batches. There are, nationally, a total of eight lots, with the coexistence of several lots within the same department. Each batch includes “clusters of municipalities, to avoid the Gruyère effect”, illustrates Xavier Te…
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