The board of French national rail operator Societe Nationale des Chemins de Fer has set up a separate subsidiary, Telecom Developpement, to manage its telecommunications network. SNCF, which has a network consisting of 14,000 miles of cable, including 3,250 miles of fibre optic cable, aims to increase its fibre capacity to 7,500 miles within four years. It plans to raise the $200m to $400m needed for this by offering 30% of the equity in Telecom Developpement to outside partners. It then intends to let out spare capacity to third parties, with mobile telephone companies particularly targeted, reports Le Figaro. In addition to managing telecommunications infrastructures, the state-owned railway operator also intends to enter the market as a service provider in its own right. It says it plans to pursue this aim through subsidiaries of Telecom Developpement in which it may not necessarily have majority stakes. The French authorities have approved this diversification by the railway, but the French CGT union, currently at loggerheads with the government over France Telecom’s privatisation, predictably criticised the move, saying it amounts to privatising the performing assets created by a public service and threatens protected-status jobs. In May the railway operator was granted permission to lease capacity to cellular operators Generale des Eaux SA unit Societe Francaise du Radiotelephone SA and Bouygues Telecom SA. SNCF is also a member of the Hermes Europe Railtel BV joint venture that is planning to build a pan-European telecommunications network along railway tracks.
