According to ANFR measurements, SFR made a great breakthrough in 5G deployments at the end of 2021. The operator with the red square is now ahead of its competitor Orange on the 3.5 GHz core band. Free remains the provider of the largest network.
New year, new leader in 5G. As every month, the National Frequency Agency (ANFR) updated its Observatory of network deployments. On 5G, as of January 1, 2022, there were 31,650 authorized sites in France, 22,180 of which are technically operational. An increase of 2.2% compared to early December 2021, but the main information is elsewhere.
This is indeed the first time that Orange has seen itself overtaken on the 3.5 GHz band, the famous “core band” of 5G. SFR can indeed boast of a great breakthrough, going from 2320 operational sites on this frequency a month ago to 2829. The operator therefore steals first place from the former France Telecom which has 2699 functional antennas. In total, there are 9,185 operational 5G sites at 3.5 GHz throughout the metropolitan area.
Free always bets on quantity
It is always Free which offers the most complete network with 13,578 operational sites all frequencies combined. But Xavier Niel’s operator relies heavily on 700 MHz antennas which are far from the standards required by 5G. Bouygues Telecom (5940 sites), SFR (4818) and Orange (3046) complete the ranking.
As for 4G, for which new antennas are also regularly put into service, it is Orange which dominates the debates with 27,337 sites in service out of a total of 94,023. network measurements in a specific area of your city, Cartoradio.