Free now has more than 20,000 5G sites across all frequencies, far ahead of the competition. Lagging behind the queen 3.5GHz band, the company is working hard to reach 8,000 compatible sites by the end of the year.
After debuting 5G+ to the general public last month, Free Mobile must work hard to honor the commitments it made while allocating 5G frequencies, namely having 8,000 3.5GHz sites by the end of the year. If the competition has already achieved this goal, the former troublemaker has redoubled his efforts since this summer.
In its new monthly 5G network rollout monitor, ANFR this week revealed the number of sites that have made 5G compatible with each operator during September 2024. In the so-called queen band, Free Mobile has equipped 207 new sites, ahead of Orange (+144), SFR ( +138) and Bouygues Telecom (+81). In total, operator Xavier Niel now has 7,154 3.5GHz sites, which is far behind Orange which has already reached its 2025 targets with 10,545 sites. SFR and Bouygues have 8,819 and 8,395 supports respectively.
Asked by Le Figaro Regarding this deployment, Nicholas Thomas, Managing Director of Free, says he is confident: “We are very confident in our coverage commitments for the end of the year.” All frequencies combined, Free Mobile remains at the top of the rankings in the number of 5G sites, having reached an important milestone thanks to the massive deployment of the 700 MHz band, and now has more than 20,000 5G sites, far ahead of Bouygues Communications (14,360 modes) and SFR (13,028). After deployment in addition to the 2100 MHz band. Orange differentiates itself by choosing to deploy only the 3.5 GHz band which provides greater throughput at the expense of coverage. However, the historical operator has 339 operational 5G technical sites in the 700 MHz frequency and 180 sites in the 2100 MHz band.
This article has been reprinted on the Univers FreeBox website
