Situation in France

The French situation concerning the Internet is at the least disastrous. Because of the existence of the Minitel but also because of the bad habit of centralizing everything in Paris, France has accumulated an enormous delay compared to the other European countries concerning the use of Internet.

This delay is all the more obvious in the regions, because French Internet operators are almost all Parisians, and have only relays in the regions. This is the result of an imbalance in the physical infrastructures needed by Internet. Thus, there is currently 6 operational GIX in France (i.e. with transit exchanges). And these 6 nodes are located... in Paris.

In fact, the entire metropolis’ Internet transit passes by the Parisian GIX, which has for consequence the announced delay of the development of the NT in the regions, but also an increasingly strong cleavage between connected Parisian and the non-connected people living outside the capital.
A tremendous effort was required of the regional and local authorities to try and build communication networks, in order not to remain behind the Internet expansion.

Here is a small simulation of what happens when a person connects himself from Strasbourg (A) when he wants to connect himself to 2 sites, one in Strasbourg (B), the other in Toulouse (C). Scenario 1 shows the exchanges of information without and scenario 2 with EuroGIX.

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One can clearly see that the GIX, not only improves the performances of the local Internet, but also makes it possible to discharge the Parisian structures of part of the binary flow, hence improving the overall Internet performances.