Do not forget that France Telecom had at the time of opening the market the best network in Europe with a totally homogeneous DSLAM setup and incredibly good ba

Do not forget that France Telecom had at the time of opening the market the best network in Europe with a totally homogeneous DSLAM setup and incredibly good backbone. With the rules to force FT to open its systems to the other players, it was possible for them to piggy back on the best network, offer an incredibly good quality of service for very cheap while at the same time build their own network. So, you can thanks the ARCEP and FT. In Germany this was not the case and the quality over the country varies a lot. If you are lucky you have as good or better than in France, if not you have a 1 Mbps connection.