Property, plant and equipment mainly comprise network facilities and equipment.
The gross value of property, plants and equipment is made up of their acquisition or production cost, which includes study and construction fees as well as enhancement costs that increase the capacity of equipment and facilities. Maintenance and repair costs are expensed as incurred, except where they serve to increase the asset’s productivity or prolong its useful life.
The cost of property, plant and equipment also includes the estimated cost of dismantling, removing and restoring the site occupied due to the obligation incurred by the Group.
The roll-out of assets by stage, especially for network assets, in the Group’s assessment, does not generally require a substantial period of preparation for the Group. As a consequence, the Group does not generally capitalize the interest expense incurred during the construction and acquisition phase for its property, plant and equipment and intangible assets.
The assets acquired in form of finance lease do not affect the cash flow on acquisition. However, the subsequent rental payments during the leasing period represent interest payments (cash flow on operating activities) and capital repayments (cash flow on financing activities).
The majority of the assets held under finance lease are network buildings. The land and buildings hosting radio sites may belong to the Group, or be held through a finance lease, or be available under an operating lease or be simply made available.
The lease agreements of office buildings and points of sale are generally qualified as operating leases and the future lease payments are disclosed as unrecognized contractual commitments in Note 14.
Simultaneously the equipment, very often generic, of which the risks and rewards of ownership have been transferred from the Group to third parties via a lease, is considered as sold.
In France, the regulatory framework governing the fiber optic network roll-out (Fiber To The Home – FTTH) organizes the access by commercial operators to the last mile of networks rolled-out by another operator on a co-funding basis (ab initio or a posteriori) or through a line access. The sharing of rights and obligations between the various operators co-financing the terminal section of networks is classified as a joint operation in accordance with IFRS 11 "Partnerships": Orange only recognizes as an asset its share of the network assets self-built or purchased to other co-financing operators.
The Group has entered into network sharing arrangements with other mobile operators on a reciprocal basis, which may cover passive infrastructure, active equipment or even spectrum. Accordingly, in Poland, the arrangements with Deutsche Telekom have been qualified as a joint operation: the access network infrastructures and related equipment are recognized as fixed assets for the Group’s share of assets installed by the Group or Deutsche Telekom in their own geographical area.
In some African countries, the Group has also entered into sharing arrangements with TowerCos (companies operating telecom towers). These TowerCos enable mobile operators, including Orange, to share sites, passive infrastructure and related services (by managing the mobile operators’ sites and/or acquiring or building sites). The unit of account and the specific features of each arrangement lead the Group to generally qualify these transactions as a service. The long-term commitments resulting from these arrangements are presented as unrecognized contractual commitments (see Note 14).