MarketWatch has a story about France Telecom laying 100,000 km worth of fibre-optic network cable, delivering 100Mbit/s to customers. That network is currently being deployed in Paris, but will be extended to other big population centres over the next few years.

Here's the thing though: France Telecom is putting the network in place hoping that the French telco regulator won't enforce sharing of it - or unbundling if you like.

I know that Telecom management held out an investment carrot for the goverment but by that time it was too late to stave off regulation. It does make me wonder though if it wouldn't be a smart idea by Telecom to get together with some of the larger telco players and build a shared FTTP network on the condition that it won't be regulated.