Quality of mobile services: Arcep crowns Orange, including on 5G

By Bastien Lion (@BastienLion)Share:

1

Arcep has drawn up its assessment of the quality of mobile services for the past year. Orange stands out more than ever as the leader in almost all categories, in particular the deployment of 5G.

Like every year, the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Communications, Posts and Press Distribution (Arcep) has drawn up its end-of-course report on the quality of mobile services in France. The opportunity to establish the ranking of the best students among the various operators, but also to note the various advances in this area over the last 12 months.

First element put forward by the telecoms policeman: mobile Internet is in clear progress, in all the zones studied (rural, intermediate and dense). It's Orange that is doing best on displaying pages in less than 5 seconds, with a success rate of 98% in dense and intermediate areas, and 90% in rural areas. Overall, all operators have gained on average more than 8 points on the latter compared to 2020. Video viewing is dominated by Bouygues Telecom in dense areas (94% of videos watched in perfect quality), but it is Orange which takes the lead in the other two configurations. Here again, we note a very good average of 9 additional points across all operators.

Average download speeds reached an average of 71 Mbit/s against 49 Mbit/s the previous year. Here again, Orange is doing the best with an average of 110 Mbit/s in all areas, followed by SFR, Bouygues and Free. However, the latter is second in rural areas.

#Feel #like #traveling? "Too Much Baggage? How to Ship Your Luggage" by STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM https://t.co/rpvGT21XAh

— ATYLA Foundation Tue May 31 19:38:05 +0000 2016

On 5G, Free weighs heavy… but Orange remains the best

Arriving in France at the end of 2020, 5G is also entitled to its own measures. It is still and always the former France Télécom (but not yet its low-cost little sister Sosh) which leads the dance, with an average of 142 Mbit/s on its downlink speeds, and a peak of 227 Mbit/s in dense areas. SFR and Bouygues follow, and Free closes the march with a poor average of 31 Mbit/s. Xavier Niel's operator thus pays for his choice to bet on a very high number of antennas based largely on 700 MHz frequencies, far from the 3.5 GHz "core band" necessary for optimal 5G.

Arcep also measured the "attachment rate" of 5G, that is to say the share of connection tests that really used 5G without having to switch to 4G, even momentarily. In this little game, Bouygues Telecom is doing the best in dense areas, with a rate of 60%. Free takes the lead in the intermediate zone as well as in the rural zone, where he is even the only one not to obtain a zero result. This is the positive counterpart of the strategy mentioned above. If its antennas are not the most efficient, they are by far the ones that cover the most territory. At the last Arcep census, Free thus held 10,229 5G sites against 2,943, 1,872 and 1,751 at its competitors Bouygues Telecom, Orange and SFR (respectively). But less than 13% of this total is based on the band-heart at Free, against 85% at Orange, in the lead on the latter.

Orange goes faster by TGV

As regards the "voice and SMS" quality of service, the results stagnate much more from one year to the next. On a national scale, Orange has the highest rate of calls held for 2 minutes without audible disturbance (86%), followed by Bouygues Telecom and SFR (82%) and Free (81%). The trend is similar for the rate of SMS received in less than 10 seconds with 96% for Orange, 94% for Bouygues Telecom and SFR, and 92% for Free.

Finally, the last measure relates to transport routes. On the roads, the gap is very tight between the different operators, who are all doing very well on the ability to display a web page in less than 10 seconds (between 93% for Free and 97% for Orange). The trend is similar for calls held comfortably beyond 2 minutes. On the other hand, the former France Telecom is at least 13 points ahead of the competition in terms of web browsing (85% of pages displayed in less than 10 seconds) and on calls in the TGV. The gap is however much smaller in the intercity, Transilien and RER, although Orange retains the lead.

Multi-function newser robot, seems stuck in the "talkative" position, constantly emits sounds similar to well-known melodies. Can be useful during karaoke.