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While the Internet has become as indispensable as water or electricity, Pierre Danon, CEO of Numericable, announced that the cable operator will introduce a social tariff, responding to the request of the Prime Minister.

LE FIGARO. – For 9.99 euros per month, which will service the right customers?

Pierre Danon. – The Prime Minister had asked the operators a triple play package of around 20 euros for the poor. Numericable goes beyond and offers 9.99 euros a month for 60 channels of television (DTT channels and a selection of foreign channels), Internet access at 2 Mbps and unlimited calls in metropolitan France.There are two requirements to be eligible for this offer: being beneficiary of the RSA or disabled adult allowance and live in housing benefit service unique digital Numericable.

Will you receive compensation from the state?

The universal service fund, managed by the Caisse des depots, should pay a subsidy of 4.21 euros per month per subscriber to Numericable. This package will therefore revert to 5.99 euros a month to subscribers, 4 euro is already included in the charges. I sent a letter yesterday with the offer to Prime Minister, Arcep and services Bercy. If they approve our offer within two months we could launch it this summer.

What advantage Numericable?

It is primarily a historical constant of the cable as being involved in social housing and community.On the other hand, Numericable, who will work with municipalities and departments on this job should be able to equip a large number of new homes. Some customers take the social tariff, but others choose our offerings more upscale. I think that with this offer we can win new customers. We are now at 25% market share on the recruitment of new Internet subscribers. This should enable us to progress further. Not to mention that in dealing with public housing offices, Numericable reduces acquisition costs and delinquency risks.

You had already launched in November offer "low cost" to 19.90 euros. What is the result?

This offer works very well. It represents approximately one third of our new subscribers. Auchan is also to engage the clutch on this niche, because there is a real logic to segment the market.They are not social but tender offers "low-cost targeted. For example, many people do not use the TV service yet they pay their standard Internet package at 30 euros a month. We must stop the dictatorship of the package at 30 euros, which was a stroke of genius Free, but has not moved for four years.

After Darty and Auchan Bouygues Telecom, will you welcome new operators on your fiber network?

We are in discussions with various partners, but he must first deal with the influx of new customers for our partners. Auchan has trained 1 200 hypermarkets in 72 vendors!

The picture improves Numericable does to customers?

Yes. Having been a champion of consumer complaints, admittedly, we're totally out of radar DGCCRF.The service was bad a year ago, we made a lot of work, it is now correct. And we will still improve.

Having renounced the 4th license, what are your plans in the mobile?

Our priority remains the fiber. On the mobile, we are virtual network operator Bouygues Telecom. We will soon launch a 3G and a key card offer prepaid. But we do not support the pedal fully, because we can not afford to spend millions of euros to acquire a subscriber base.In 2010-2011, Numericable focuses on profitable growth.

Are you still handicapped by the weight of your debt?

Having renegotiated our debt with the bankers in November, we loosened the noose and we are perfectly comfortable with our deadlines for repayment of 1.5 billion euros by 2014.

The connected TV is it a concern for you, whose job is to aggregate a bunch of strings?

It is a subject that we anticipated early 2009 with our range of interactive TV "2.0", and we continue to invest. We have discussions with several manufacturers of televisions. In April, Numericable present its first applications in the form of widgets available on the TV screen.We will launch thematic portals (youth, sports, entertainment …) which will become real media capable of guiding the client and recommend programs.

With Twitter, the communication is passed in real time. With Shazam, the iPhone has become a machine to recognize the music. German Aka-Aki opened the madness of mobile location based social networks. These services are transforming our lives for several months have been identified, there are one or two years, the Forum Netexplorateur. Founded in 2008 by Martine and Thierry Bidegain Happe, it seeks to identify innovations that can have a significant impact on the uses digital economy or society. The third edition, including Le Figaro is a partner, meets Thursday and Friday to the Senate in Paris. It is an opportunity to set new standards in the "socio-digital revolution" underway.

The winners of the 2010 edition were selected from more than 440 projects emerging. They are part of a new digital world where the Internet becomes ubiquitous.The URL can not be visited more but found himself. Many objects become key input into an ecosystem where real and not real live. Databases and servers are scattered, software and outsourced services, terminal dematerialized. The interface for mobile augmented reality Sixth Sense allows to browse the Internet with a virtual screen projected by a minicam, dial a phone number in the palm of his hand or view a video on a newspaper article. Accessible from anywhere, this new Internet makes the user knowing. With mobile browser layar augmented reality, any building or environment is an opportunity to unwind "layers of virtual information.Augmented with TAT ID, the user can display a variety of virtual cards and virtual social networking profiles around her face, free to the caller to download this information.

Freeing the user of the computer

This ecosystem is emerging as new human-machine interfaces capable of freeing, ultimately, the user of the computer or its smartphone free business cards . The aircraft of the future will respond to a voice command, gesture or brain. The French HiLabs has already begun to deploy an intelligent window on the windows of merchants Grenoble: responding to displacement of people, she then called by a movie, the way to interact with one giant touch screen (Eyelights).

On the Internet also should be contacted individually to the consumer.Social networks like Facebook and Twitter is why a "hunting ground" ideal marker there conversations on Internet brand and integrate it with an ad campaign that takes account of these opinions (People Powered Ads).

In this new digital world order, and environmental organizations are impacted first. The technology can learn to change and therefore it is the creed of Source Map, which shows the carbon footprint of a product or a food or Mobile Lucas, who turns the mobile phone Minilab analysis medical use and particularly to distinguish true and false cases of malaria.

Similarly, the Better Place project relies heavily on intelligence network, able to indicate to drivers of electric cars recharging station nearest, then manage the transaction load and billing.At work, it calls for transparency on the powers of his future employer to decide to change. What improve individual productivity or collective, as the founder of the website Get a Great Boss. In parallel, microtâches can be relocated and create microjobs for solidarity: the draft Work Give an iPhone application developed by Samasource, which proposes to perform computing tasks mechanical ( "tag" a video detailing card, test application) by refugees from Dadaab camp in Kenya. Initiatives that, once industrialized are likely to reverse the tide.

Born in the urgency of the crisis, the idea of an "economic government" back in force at the time construction begins the following: provide sustainable Europe on track towards growth and employment . Herman Van Rompuy, EU president, described the emergency Friday as "a matter of survival" for the continent. In response, the Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero suggests a tighter coordination of national economic policies, with the possibility of sanctions against the recalcitrant.

For his baptism of fire in Madrid, the first president of the European Council has sounded the alarm. Europe out of the crisis weakened and "defensive," said Herman Van Rompuy. She has no choice. After the test, "the growth potential of the EU has fallen to just over 1% per year. It will not be sufficient to fund our social model (…) and the so-called European way of life. "It is time to speak truth to reforms and "the collective effort."

Europe out of the crisis and palliative care, but diagnosis remains gloomy backdrop of sluggish growth and industrial decline facing Asia and America. Unemployment rose for the first time in over 10% in the euro area, adds gloom. The first test of a burst is due February 11 in Brussels at an extraordinary economic summit with President Van Rompuy himself summoned.

Risk for sovereignty

Spain Jose Luis Zapatero, who holds the presidency of the EU, expresses its readiness to help."We must absolutely take another strategy (growth), binding, with the 2020," said Spanish Prime Minister told reporters.

For Madrid, the collective rules that already apply to the euro, government deficits or the competition on the market provide a unique model of governance. It should be expanded to a European recovery in the medium term. The idea remains controversial. If France pushes for eighteen months a "greater coordination" industrial policies, Germany is notoriously reticent. As for Britain, it opposes the front to European encroachment on its sovereignty.

Spain wants to raise – and more muscular – the idea of an investment plan in ten years. Already proposed in the late 1990s, the Lisbon Strategy was to make Europe the area's most competitive. In 2010, she finds herself far short.Now Madrid wants to go further by requiring states to targets and deadlines in areas deemed critical: energy, education, the digital economy or vocational training. The scoreboard would be monitored by Brussels. "Incentives and corrective measures will complement the device, said Jose Luis Zapatero. This time, it is to ensure that the objectives will be achieved. "

Madrid launches the debate with a hint of provocation. Herman Van Rompuy has not taken over the idea of a constraint. The crisis has restored the fortunes of interventionism. But the Spanish recipe may strike the interests of States.The Capitals would not see a good eye, the EU invested a right to control their expenditure budget, or even any power to sanction.

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