ADSL Technology
After selling the first ADSL2+ offers in Europe, providing a speed of 18 Mbit/s down and 1 Mbit/s up in 2004, French operators continue to offer new services, driven by the competition. It is possible to use video telephony, video on demand, Reach Extended ADSL for 8 km lines soon. Experiments aren't any more the Iliad/Free trademark: they recently demonstrated an aggregated 174 Mbit/s link, while Telecom Italia innovates on the service with a free hotline and France Telecom is pushing VDSL.
In December 2005, Free enabled a TV multicasting service on the customer's local network, an open solution based on RTSP. This completes the media center capability of the freebox, also using the VideoLAN project. They launched on April 2006 a new Freebox divided in two devices with DVB-T and HDTV capabilities and a Mimo WiFi network.
Quadruple play, triple play with mobile communications, is available: Neuf Cegetel is selling for 200€ and 1€ with a plan Twin, a GSM/WiFi hybrid telephone after the experimental beautifulphone, by the means of a QTek 8300 and Wanadoo sells Unik, a Motorola, Nokia or Samsung handset for 100€. Free develops a wifi mesh network of HD freeboxes to be used to provide mobile telephony and compete with traditional cellular operators.
Read more about this topic: Internet In France
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“Our technology forces us to live mythically, but we continue to think fragmentarily, and on single, separate planes.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)