Orange Signs EUR 700 Mln Loan With EIB For FTTP Roll-Out In French AMII Areas

Orange has secured a EUR 700 million loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB). The funds will be used to complete the FTTP roll-out in France across areas covered by the AMII agreement, which mainly concerns mid-size towns where the operator is investing without the help of public subsidies. Half of the loan has been made available now, said the company, with the remaining EUR 350 million accessible during the first quarter of 2020.

Orange first negotiated the AMII agreement in 2011 and then worked with Arcep on an updated version in mid-2018. Under this latest deal, it has committed to cover 11.1 million premises in nearly 2,980 municipalities located outside very high-density population areas of the country. This represents around 30 percent of the French population. According to Arcep, the operator had completed around 60 percent of its AMII roll-out at end-September.  – Telecompaper