French cable consolidation

The long-awaited deal has been agreed, and the FT/Canal+ cable assets (4.2m homes passed, 1.7m customers) are to be merged into a newco under the control of Cinven and Altice, with FT and Canal+ maintaining financial stakes. It's difficult to know what sort of arrangements may be operating below the surface, but on the face of it this is interesting, because Altice is a customer of Net2Phone's VoIP product in Belgium, Luxembourg and France. Along with UPC's plans for the recently-acquired Noos, this could be the beginning of a new VoIP offensive in France from the heretofore under-utilized cable plant.