Orange, Bouygues Telecom and SFR: the podium of mobile operators has just been unveiled by Arcep, which has completed more than 1.5 million measurements in 2019.
Web browsing, video playback, data transfer, SMS and voice calls. For Arcep, there is no debate: Orange is the best mobile operator in the country.
This is apparent from the annual survey, published Tuesday 22nd October 2019, the Authority for the regulation of electronic communications and posts. It has carried out 1.5 million 2G, 3G and 4G measurements throughout the country, in all departments (inside and outside buildings) and in transport.
Bouygues second, SFR progresses, Free improves
According to the agency, “the tests carried out on 243 indicators aim to evaluate the performance of operators’ networks, in a strictly comparable manner, and under a variety of conditions of use”.
If Orange is number 1, ” Bouygues Telecom tends to assert itself as second quality operator, SFR progresses, Free improves strongly but remains significantly behind,” says Arcep in a statement .
Orange number 1 in mobility
Orange is the best operator on roads and railways, followed by SFR and Bouygues Telecom. The coverage of roads in data is improving, with 94% loading rate of a web page in less than ten seconds for Orange and Bouygues Telecom and 91% for SFR (+3 to +7 points compared to 2018 according to the operators).
The coverage of the railways is also progressing significantly, notably Orange on the RER / Transiliens, Orange and Bouygues Telecom on the Intercités / TER, as well as the same two operators with SFR on the TGVs. Free Mobile remains very significantly behind these indicators, despite a significant improvement (from +9 to +18 points on the various transport routes).
Finally, the coverage of the Paris metro by the four operators knows a very strong progression. The download success rate of a web page is 78% in 2019 compared to 42% in 2018 and 18% in 2017.
The quality of the mobile internet rising sharply
Good news for all smartphone owners: the quality of mobile internet services has improved “significantly” for all operators.
The average downstream flow in metropolitan France is 45 Mbit / s (against 30 Mbit / s in 2018), welcomes the regulator. Orange remains the leader in this segment while Bouygues Telecom retains its advantage over SFR. Still falling behind, Free reduces the gap compared to the other three operators, except in rural areas.
Disparities
Xavier Niel’s company is also last in the Voice ranking, penalized by the absence of high-definition 4G calls. 70% of calls with 2 minutes spent with the operator are in perfect quality, against 80% for Orange, 79% for Bouygues and 78% for SFR.
Free is catching up a bit with texting. 92% of them are received in less than 10 seconds, but it is still worse than its three competitors (95%).
“There are significant differences in quality between operators,” says Arcep. It invites everyone to compare them, according to the area (dense, intermediate or rural) where he lives, and according to the transport routes he uses.
To compare the quality of the networks in your municipality click on the link below (will send you to a new page)
