Keen eyes are on the ball

There are many historical parallels between the Irish telecommunications system and that of France, evolving in a similar way and in the provisioning of certain products and services. Both started as Government-sponsored departments with a remit which encompassed postal services and the need to connect telephones and telegraphs within the country and internationally.

French manufacturers, particularly Alcatel were instrumental in assisting both the P&T and Telecom Eireann in a programme to upgrade our existing analogue exchanges which used technology developed by Almon B Strowger, a Kansas undertaker, who, in 1891, felt ill-at-ease with the manual system which required an operator to connect both parties - he worried that calls from customers might be connected to a firm of the operator's choosing.

In a country where visitors first think of the rural idyll or low-tech wine production, it can come as a surprise to learn that France was the first European country to establish a 100 per cent digital telecommunications network. Prior to the availability of ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network), French customers had access to a proprietary digital service five years before their European neighbours.

For a short time our own Telecom Eireann even offered a similar service using the French standard, but it was too little too late. Incompatible with the emerging Euro ISDN standard, our digital debut had to be quietly abandoned. In France it was already overdue for an update, and Euro ISDN was then embraced with the usual Gallic vigour.

Created as the Direction Generale de Postes et de Telecommunications in 1878, it was renamed France Telecom in 1988 and is a national carrier in the traditional sense. Competition with the former monopoly carrier does exist, but it still retains its role with a virtual monopoly of service in many areas and is the dominant provider. This is due primarily to its original monopoly status and the fact the French government did not starve the company of financial investment when the time was right to embrace new technologies.

At that time there were more than 33.3 million telephone lines in use across the country (out of a population of 58 million).

In 1991 France Telecom became an independent public telco and five years later - in accordance with the French Law enacted on July 26th, 1996 - France Telecom became a societe anonyme (corporate entity) on December 31st the same year.

France Telecom SA, was assigned a market measurement of one billion shares, wholly owned by the French government. In October 1997 the company completed its initial public offering followed by a share listing on both the New York Stock Exchange and the Paris Bourse. In parallel, the French government created an independent regulator - called ART - to licence and oversee the telecommunications sector.

By the time deregulation arrived in 1998, the company was not only well prepared but had established an impressive portfolio of products and services. This was no accident - France has, as a percentage of GDP, the highest public spending in research and development within Europe. On a global scale, only Japan spends more than France in telecommunications research.

One 1980s innovation had been to find an alternative for the wasteful production of public telephone directories, which were often out of date before they could be distributed. Enter, Minitel, a pre-Internet information terminal given free to subscribers. Using text screens and crude colour graphics it was a shadow of the World Wide Web which followed 10 years later, but it was both insightful and innovative.

Telecom Eireann's adoption of Minitel lacked this original vision, due primarily to Irish subscribers being expected to pay for the terminals, and the telephone calls to receive information. Once again, the service was quietly dropped and no formal notice of closure given.

MOBILE telecommunications has blossomed in much the same way as it has across Europe, with analogue cellular services giving way to GSM and the promise of 3G (Third Generation) technologies. Like Telecom Eireann/Eircom, France Telecom established a national GSM 900 network. Competition was provided by SFR, and a GSM 1800-only network called Bouygues Telecom. The original GSM 900 networks were subsequently awarded 1800 MHz spectrum to overcome congestion in urban areas.

Earlier this month, the French government revealed how it would issue the four 15-year 3G licences, and flew into a storm because it ignored ART's recommendation to keep entry costs low. However, it did agree that an auction process - as used in Britain - would be counterproductive, claiming the higher costs simply would be passed on to subscribers.

The French plan is to offer licences for sale using a "beauty contest" scenario - each candidate must pay a substantial entry fee of £4 billion and make formal commitments on everything from service quality, geographic coverage and an ability to pay the fees. It's widely expected that the existing networks will automatically secure a place, with the opportunity for one new entrant to join the club. Bids must be entered by the year-end, with licences due to be issued by summer next year. 3G services are not expected to commence before 2002 at the earliest.

The high saturation of French users with a fixed phone line is not seen as an impediment to the popularity of mobile technology, but will clearly make Ireland's meteoric adoption of mobile technology harder to emulate.