Free Mobile: two unions are still critical coverage

The Council of State will have to deal with the complaint of the two unions CFE - CGC and Unsa.

Telecoms CFE - CGC unions and the Unsa come to enter the Council of State to rule definitively on the issue of actual coverage of the Free Mobile network. They had already applied to the telecoms regulator that was oriented to the authority of competition, without success. If the Arcep and the ANFR already validated Free Mobile network coverage which would exceed the 27% of the French population, the two unions strongly criticise the method used, including at the level of the measure of the signal that does not necessarily mean that the network is operational. The two unions declare:

There is therefore to launch an inquiry under article l. 36 - 11 and use a suitable methodology to verify the capacity of the network Free-Mobile to take support calls to its customers and not the mere existence of a signal as it has already been done in previous controls.

For them, this new calculation will help to show that Free Mobile does not respect its commitments and thus the operator can claim roaming on Orange network. The two unions say that Free Mobile can claim this right of roaming since its own network does not cover 25% of the actual population for the voice at any time of the day. The two unions concluded with this sentence: "This is why the unions asked the Council of State of"reject"ARCEP and to oblige it to apply the sanction procedure".

According to Arcep, Free Mobile coverage exceeded the 27% of the French population at the end of February. ANFR (Agency national of frequencies), which challenged these measures at the beginning of March, was also on the ground to conclude that Free Mobile actually covered 30.8% of the population in metropolitan France. However, Orange continues to say that 90% of Free Mobile communications continue to go through its network. The Council of State will have to decide.