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Haute-Garonne Numérique, the government agency in charge the deployment of very high speed broadband in Haute-Garonne, a department in south-west France, has chosen Altitude Infrastructure to deploy a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network throughout its territory by 2022. Following installation, the company will manage the network for 20 years.

The network will cover 280,000 premises in the department, excluding the Toulouse Métropole, Muret, Plaisance-du-Touch and Ramonville-Saint-Agne zones.

Following commercial close, which is expected in May, Atitude Infrastructure will be contracted to deploying 278,000 catches by May 2022. 10,000 will be built by the end of May 2019, 108,000 by May 2020 and 217,000 by May 2021. The company will be subject to heavy penalties should it not meet these deadlines. 

The total cost of the project is EUR515 million (US$637.4 million), which includes EUR31 million (US$38.4 million) to be provided by Haute-Garonne Numérique, the Occitanie/Pyrenees-Mediterranean regional government and the French government.

This win brings Altitude's contracted fiber outlets to nearly three million.

This project aligns with recent efforts within the department to meet the needs of individuals and businesses that currently do not benefit from good internet connection. A hundred or so radio ramp-up projects were launched in 2016-2017 to provide a minimum bandwidth of 30 Mb/s to some 25,000 premises. 

It also aligns with a nationwide movement to improve broadband connection all over France: the Very High Speed ​​Plan (Plan France Très Haut Débit), launched by the French government's Digital Agency (L'Agence du Numérique) in 2013.

The main objective of the plan is to bring very high-speed broadband service to every home, business and government office in France by 2022. The agency plan to invest EUR20 billion (US$24.6 billion) in its implementation over a 10-year period through private service providers, local authorities and the government.