France Telecom has chosen Alcatel NV, Matra-Ericsson, Societe Anonyme de Telecommunications and Siemens AG to complete the installation of its high-speed fibre optic networks by providing fibre to the kerb and fibre to the home. The first three companies will provide a full range of telecommunications products and remote cable television distribution services, while Siemens will provide strictly telecommunications services. France Telecom said the new contracts are part of the government’s commitment to investing in a true information superhighway. The broadband fibre distribution nets will offer digital transmission of up to 1Gbps MPEG-2 image encoding and also Asychronous Transfer Mode switching.
