Q. As we know Kosc Telecom was acquired by Altitude Infra, what are the key benefits of this merger to your customers and their end users?
David: Altitude Infra is one of the major French operator deploying fibre across France. With this acquisition, we take over a very high-speed infrastructure that was historically built and designed to connect businesses nationwide. Previously, Kosc defined itself as a connectivity provider. Now, we want Kosc to also be recognized as an infrastructure provider. Indeed, Kosc offers 10 million fibre lines, with and without SLAs, soon-to-be completed with Altitude Infra 3,5 million lines. And, as an infrastructure provider, Kosc will continue to deploy its network nationwide, with a strong focus on FttO for customers with critical needs. For Kosc customers and end users, that means more and more connectivity options to keep paving the way for fibre migration in France.
Antoine: In addition, being part of the Altitude Group is a guarantee of long-term strength and quality for our customers, since Altitude Infra detains a valuable experience in fibre optics in France. Our teams are extremely thrilled to benefit from this experience.
Q. How will Kosc Telecom continue to support the digitisation of French businesses?
Antoine: Kosc’s strength is to offer a comprehensive connectivity portfolio adapted to all companies, whatever their size and digital needs. Indeed, Kosc Telecom provides two product ranges, offering high-speed and very high-speed connectivity:
• At an affordable price with the Best-Effort offers: Broadband Max (DSL) & Best-Effort Fibre
• With the best SLAs with the E-Access MEF offers: EFM (DSL) & E-Access Fibre
MEF-compliant E-Access products guarantee symmetrical bandwidth at the highest speed; the highest level of security and confidentiality through a dedicated physical line; and the highest service availability with a 4-hour Guaranteed Restoration Time.
On another hand, Kosc facilitates the digitisation of French businesses by simplifying the process of ordering and managing lines for its end users: on our single CaaS solution e-Portal, our customers can orchestrate from A to Z their end users’ lines.
Q. How does Kosc intend on using its planned €100 million euros over the next 5 years?
David: This 100-million-euro investment will be dedicated to accelerating Kosc Telecom development to better serve its carrier customers’ growth. In practice, this will involve the development of new value-added services and, not to mention, the massive extension of Kosc’s coverage. Indeed, our ambition is to reinforce Kosc as the one-stop shop for all BtoB connectivity needs in France. To this purpose, we want Kosc to aggregate all the major infrastructure networks in the coming years. Completing a 100% coverage in France is Kosc’s focus and we will give ourselves the means to achieve this goal. But this 100-million-euro investment is just the start of a wider program of fibre investment. Indeed, Altitude recently raised half a billion euros in equity and debt, and we are now planning to invest a total around €2.5 billion over the coming years to extend Altitude fibre nationwide.
Q. What is the key differentiator between Kosc and its competitors?
Antoine: Neutrality is Kosc DNA: we do not and will not ever compete with our customers. Our focus is to partner with B2B carriers, helping them to win more deals and keep on growing their business. This wholesale-only model, that we share with Altitude Infrastructure, is quite unique on French telecom wholesale market. It enabled us to build strong and trustworthy commercial relations with our domestic and international customers. For example, we have developed for them unprecedented fibre offers, that were previously not possible in France.
What still differentiates us from our competitors is the automation we have succeeded in bringing to our customer through our CaaS solution.
Q. Looking ahead, what are Kosc’s strategic priorities for the rest of 2020 heading into 2021?
Antoine: Our priority for 2020 is to successfully integrate into the Altitude Group, while continuing our strong production momentum… and despite the unprecedented pandemic! Thankfully, we can rely on our teams who are excited about this new project with Altitude.
David: And for 2021, we will keep paving the way with fibre migration by negotiating with the major infrastructure carriers in France… Stay tuned!
