France’s 5G coverage remains very disparate in 2024, with Free covering a majority of the territory, but with much lower speeds than Orange, which focuses on speed.
The comparator of internet boxes and mobile plans, Zone ADSL&Fibre, published this Tuesday, January 16, its 2024 ranking of 5G coverage in France. The latter, carried out in partnership with INRIA (National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology), shows us that since the marketing of 5G offers to the general public at the end of 2020, positions remain relatively fixed between operators. Free Mobile and Orange are nevertheless those which stand out the most.
Free has deployed a large coverage which does not really warm up the flow rates
If we stick to the figures, Free is in the lead, thanks to generous coverage of 81.9% of the territory in 5G. Yes, but now we know that Xavier Niel’s operator, who has just teased the arrival of his next Freebox, has favored speed of deployment over performance.
Free focused on antennas with an already existing frequency (700 MHz) and operated for 4G, to also offer it to 5G subscribers. In 3.5 GHz coverage, the “real” 5G frequency band, the actor only covers 6.7% of the territory, the lowest rate of the four competitors. Consequence: Free Mobile is the best in coverage, but the worst in speed. The average 5G speed offered by the company only reaches 92 Mbit/s.
In terms of speed, Free Mobile is clearly ahead of Bouygues Telecom (141 Mbit/s) and SFR (146 Mbit/s), which respectively cover 25.6% and 25.7% of the territory in 5G, including 9.6% each. in the 3.5 GHz band. SFR and Bouygues are, on this last statistic, the best in France.
Orange wants to offer a real technological breakthrough to its subscribers
The fastest therefore is Orange. The incumbent operator offers an average download (download) speed of 275 Mbit/s on 5G. This is almost twice as much as its first pursuer, SFR, and almost three times more than Free Mobile.
Orange, on the other hand, covers “only” 9.2% of the territory in 5G, including 9.1% in the single 3.5 GHz band. As you can see, the company has decided to focus on quality and speed, and therefore technological breakthrough, rather than on geographical distribution. At this time, there are no plans for this strategy to evolve.
On the other hand, Free Mobile had planned the switch to 5G (while waiting for the famous 6G which we wonder what its usefulness will be for the general public) well in advance. But it seems that the operator wants to catch up on speeds by deploying more antennas in the 3.5 GHz frequency band. We will see at the end of the year how things have evolved.
Source: ADSL&Fiber Zone
Journalist, responsible for CLUBIC news. Reporter, videographer, host and even singer-imitator, I wrote my first article in 6th grade. I made this vocation my job (graduated from EJCAM), to write, interview, film, edit and produce on a daily basis. Friendships with Tech, of course, but also with the world of media, sport and travel. In addition to journalism, video production and animation, I have a YouTube channel (in my name) which should pique your curiosity if you like beautiful walks around the world, new technologies and Koh-Lanta 🙂
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