French telecom authority Arcep announced that Free Mobile and Orange have agreed to extend their existing national roaming partnership, which was last updated in June 2016. The regulator said that it is examining the amended contract and is seeking the views of other market stakeholders as part of its assessment.
Under the roaming deal, Free Mobile has been relying on access to Orange’s 2G/3G network since 2011. Following new terms signed in 2016, Free Mobile agreed to phase out roaming by capping the speeds available to customers accessing the Orange network. This has lead to a gradual reduction in connection speeds, resulting in a cap set at 384 Kbits between 01 January and 31 December 2020.
With this latest renewal, Free Mobile would be able to extend the terms in place for 2020 up until the end of 2022, maintaining the cap of 384 Kbits across the 24-month period. During these two years, there would be no increase in the capacity of interconnection links between the core networks of Free Mobile and Orange for the flow of total roaming traffic.
The regulator has also noted that a financial mechanism would be introduced in 2022 to encourage “a reduction in the number of Free Mobile customers who are using Orange’s 2G/3G network.”
Free Mobile’s justification for the extension is based on two main points. Despite its “very proactive” roll-out efforts, the operator has been unable to catch up with market standards of network coverage, which have increased substantially in recent years. It has also argued the importance of providing 2G services on par with the coverage level offered by rivals, highlighting its inability to deploy a 2G network in the short term due to a lack of spectrum resources.
