Free's back-to-school promises: VoWiFi, enhanced €2 plan, faster 4G… | MacGeneration

In front of its community gathered last weekend, Free made several expected announcements. VoWiFi is finally on the program for Free Mobile customers, reports Univers Freebox. This technology allows you to make calls and send SMS via Wi-Fi without using the 3G/4G network. It has been present for a while with other operators, but Free has so far not taken the leap.

“Several specific settings on the emergency numbers are necessary and a few issues need to be resolved,” said Xavier Niel, who did not risk advancing a launch date. But at least we know that the operator is working on the subject. As a reminder, VoLTE (which allows you to stay in 4G during a phone call) should be launched next month.

The emblematic €2 package should soon evolve. After a loss of 323,000 subscribers to this package in 2020, Free is preparing an enrichment without price change. Currently, it includes 2 hours of calls, 50 MB of data and unlimited SMS/MMS. We can imagine that this change will concern either an increase in the data envelope or in the volume of calls.

On the landline, Free has assured that its Freebox TV boxes will not disappear in favor of applications for boxes or connected televisions. One could ask the question when the operator caused a sensation by publishing its OQEE app on Apple TV and even marketing the Apple product.

Xavier Niel replied that having your own decoder avoids the constraints linked to the hardware of certain third-party devices, but also that subscribers prefer to have a physical product. And then Free certainly does not want to give all the keys to Apple or another, while there are commercial interests in having its own box.

In addition, Free Mobile is in the process of accelerating its 4G+ network, with speeds that can increase by up to 25%. This improvement is achieved through deployment on the 2,100 MHz frequency band: Free previously had 5 MHz on this band and went to 15 MHz at the beginning of the month. On September 1, Free had authorizations for 4,726 sites at 2,100 MHz, currently being deployed.