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25-35% of French broadband net adds are going to Bouygues/Ideo, ahead of stalwarts Free.fr and France Telecom. Last year Bouygues launched a 45 euro ($60) Quadplay and it's become the hottest product in Europe. Bouygues, France's third wireless carrier, has come from nowhere to among the landline leaders with an offer of about a 25% discount. The land of the 30 euro triple play has become the land of the 40-60 euro quadplay, as SFR and France Telecom have now had to offer quad. 45 euro at Bouygues gets unlimited landline calls to 100 countries, "up to 20 meg" ADSL, 90 (not so popular) TV channels and 120 minutes of mobile calls.

     Frederic Jeanmaire of Merrill Lynch has put a buy on Bouygues. He acknowledges that mobile prices will be driven down by the entry of Xavier Niel and Free.fr in 2012, perhaps 10-25% more. He also believes the government program to bring down mobile and sms termination will continue working. Jeanmaire thinks those factors are already in the stock price after a large fall.

Viviane Reding was on target when she called for eliminating termination charges across Europe. The cuts - fiercely resisted by most countries - have resulted in huge consumer savings across Europe. Prices set in the retail market for the services are more competitive than the charges of a terminating monopoly.  That's a strong argument for eliminating ICC in the U.S. as well, so long as it's not structured as a multi-billion giveaway to the bells.