Telecommunications giant Orange has taken its rival Free to court. The historic French operator wishes, through this action, to obtain more clarity on its 5G mobile offer in France.
If independent indicators are to be believed, Orange is the one that offers the best speed for its 5G network in France. A privileged position that the group wishes to be clear to everyone. However, the way of communicating by its competitor in the field, Free, would, in his opinion, interfere with the public’s reception of this information. So, in the hope that Xavier Niel’s company would be more transparent, Orange launched legal action.
Orange contests the presentation of its performances made by Free
It is a fairly technical file which was presented to the Paris commercial court on March 26. Indeed, Orange contested the way in which Free presents the performance of its 5G network in its price brochure. Unlike Orange, but also SFR and Bouygues, the company founded by Xavier Niel details its performance not using technical indicators, but using comparisons.
It is thus explained that on its network, the “ theoretical maximum transmission rate ” go ” up to 1.7 times the speeds of Free 4G. » It is also indicated that “ the theoretical maximum reception rate ” go ” up to three times the speeds of Free 4G. » Which doesn’t please Orange.
One objective: obtain more details from Free
And for good reason, the deployment of 5G is being done across three different frequency bands. The higher the frequency, the better the flow, while, conversely, the range is smaller. The three 5G frequency bands in France are as follows:
- 3.5 GHz, i.e. the so-called “high” frequencies, with the best throughput, but the shortest range;
- 2.2 GHz, i.e. “medium” frequencies;
- 700 MHz, i.e. the frequencies considered “low”, with the lowest throughput and the best range.
And on this technical point, Orange and Free have taken opposite sides. The first only uses the 3.5 GHz frequency bands, and is the operator in the country which has the most 5G sites of this type, namely 9,476 sites, compared to 5,727 sites for Free, which places him in fourth and last place in France.
On the contrary, Xavier Niel’s firm has chosen to invest very massively in the 700 MHz slot, and has 19,041 sites using these frequency bands. As a result, Free was able to deploy 5G more widely than its competitor Orange, and can claim to cover more than 94% of the population, when Orange indicates that it reaches around 60% of this same population. But using antennas offering the best possible throughput at the moment. It is this nuance that the group wants to force Free to appear on its price brochures, thanks to legal action. The court will deliver its judgment on May 15.
Source : The gallery
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