Free roaming with Orange: SFR and Bouygues Telecom are rejected
The Council of State rejected SFR and Bouygues Telecom’s appeal against Arcep not to modify the amendment to the roaming contract between Free Mobile and Orange.
The Council of State validates Arcep’s action on Orange / Free roaming
The story began in March 2011, when Free Mobile and Orange signed a roaming contract for 2G and 3G. This allowed subscribers of the new operator (which launched in January 2012) to use Orange’s network when Free’s was not available.
This contract was to last six years, but there has already been a postponement with a deadline at the end of 2020. The same year, Xavier Niel’s operator was able to obtain two additional years from Orange. Arcep validated the advent and this whole story displeased both SFR and Bouygues Telecom.
Now is December 2021. “This appeal was rejected by the Council of State by a decision of December 15, 2021, thus validating Arcep’s decision not to request the modification of the roaming contract”, welcomes the regulator in a statement. The decision of the Council of State is to be found here.
The Council of State recalls that “The contested amendment extends the period of termination of the roaming agreement by allowing Free Mobile customers to use, until December 31, 2022, the 2G network of the company Orange as well as its 3G network, on the ‘entire national territory, with uplink and downlink speeds limited to 384 kb / s “. For the institution, this restriction excludes a “Use under competitive conditions for data transfer”.
1% of Free Mobile traffic goes to Orange
In addition, the extension “Is accompanied by the capping of the capacity of the interconnection links between the Free Mobile network and that of Orange for the flow of roaming traffic, and the introduction in 2022 of a financial mechanism encouraging the reduction the number of customers using this roaming “.
By the way, the decision allows us to learn that 1% of Free Mobile’s traffic goes through roaming and therefore the Orange network. It is steadily decreasing over the months because Free Mobile continues to deploy its own network. At the end of 2020, Free Mobile had a coverage rate of 98% of the population when it comes to 3G.
On arrival, Bouygues Telecom and SFR are the big losers because they must each separately pay 1,500 euros to Free Mobile and Orange.
