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Our Orange users observed much faster download and upload speeds than their counterparts on other networks, clocking in at an eye-wateringly quick 41.7 Mbps for Download Speed Experience and 9.0 Mbps for Upload Speed Experience. There was a huge 15.2 Mbps gap between Orange and its next fastest rival, Bouygues, for Download Speed Experience. The average upload speeds seen by our Orange users were around 1.8-1.9 Mbps faster than those seen by our SFR and Bouygues users. Both operators tied for second place ahead of Free.
Out of our seven awards, only one eluded Orange — 4G Availability, which was a statistical tie between SFR and Bouygues. Orange’s lead over its rivals was most pronounced in the Download Speed Experience and Upload Speed Experience categories and it was the only French operator on which our users observed a Good Games Experience and a Good Voice App Experience.
SFR and Bouygues are the only French operators where our users observed 4G Availability scores in excess of 90%. This means that 4G users connected to either network spent more than 90% of their time connected to a 4G signal. Both operators are more than four percentage points ahead of Orange in this regard and more than 12 percentage points in front of Free Mobile.
Our users on three operators — Orange, SFR and Bouygues — had a Very Good Video Experience. This means that they generally observed fast loading times and only occasional stalling but their experience might have been somewhat inconsistent across users at different video providers or resolutions. While no operator scored highly enough to place in our highest category of Excellent, Orange was less than a point from doing so. Free Mobile earned a Good rating, but needs only 4.3 points more to join its peers in the Very Good category.
Most operators’ users had a Fair mobile Games Experience, which means that they found the experience “average”, with the majority of players noticing a delay between their actions and the outcomes in the game. In contrast, Games Experience award winner Orange’s users had a Good experience, which means that most users deemed the experience acceptable.
Our first operator-level analysis of the French mobile market shows that there is plenty of differentiation between users’ mobile network experience on each of France’s networks, with the Download Speed Experience observed by our users ranging from 20.4 Mbps on Free Mobile to 41.7 Mbps on Orange. Similarly, 4G Availability on Free Mobile was below 80%, while users on SFR and Bouygues observed scores in excess of 90%. There was less variation between operators in terms of our experiential metrics, particularly in terms of Voice App Experience, which assesses users’ experience when using over-the-top voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook Messenger.
However, Orange managed to scoop all three awards for these measures of the mobile experience — Video Experience, Games Experience, Voice App Experience — along with three other awards: Download Speed Experience, Upload Speed Experience and 4G Coverage Experience. The only one of our awards that it failed to win was 4G Availability, where SFR and Bouygues tied for first place.
French mobile subscribers seeking a big leap in the quality of their experience will need to be patient, given the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The French spectrum regulator, ARCEP, announced back in April that it has postponed the auction of 5G spectrum in the valuable 3.4-3.8 GHz band, due to the crisis. Given the after shock of Free Mobile’s disruptive market entry in early 2012 with extremely low pricing, it will be interesting to see how French operators embrace 5G. Will they seek to differentiate on network quality? Or will France’s operators use 5G’s arrival to herald a new price war that hinders network investment and damages users’ mobile experience as a result? Once the 5G spectrum auction happens, we will see early signs of how this will develop.
In this report, we've analyzed our data gathered in the 90 days from the start of February 2020 to see how France’s four national operators — Orange, SFR, Free Mobile and Bouygues — measure up.
| Mobile Experience Awards France | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
May 2020,
France Report
|
O
Orange
|
S
SFR
|
F
Free Mobile
|
B
Bouygues
|
Video Experience
| ||||
Games Experience
| ||||
Voice App Experience
| ||||
Download Speed Experience
| ||||
Upload Speed Experience
| ||||
4G Availability
| ||||
4G Coverage Experience
| ||||
|
Mobile Experience Awards Winners
|
May 2020,
France
|
|---|---|
|
Video Experience
|
O
Orange
|
|
Games Experience
|
O
Orange
|
|
Voice App Experience
|
O
Orange
|
|
Download Speed Experience
|
O
Orange
|
|
Upload Speed Experience
|
O
Orange
|
|
4G Coverage Experience
|
O
Orange
|
|
Mobile Experience Awards Draws
|
May 2020, France
|
|---|---|
|
4G Availability
|
S
SFR
B
Bouygues
|
|
Video Experience
Additional Metrics |
O
Orange
|
S
SFR
|
F
Free Mobile
|
B
Bouygues
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | ||||
|
4G Video Experience
| 77.3 (± 0.18) | 71.1 (± 0.24) | 69.0 (± 0.29) | 73.3 (± 0.25) |
|
3G Video Experience
| 52.5 (± 1.16) | 45.2 (± 1.24) | 34.9 (± 1.11) | 52.2 (± 1.35) |
| 4G Video Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
O
Orange
|
77 (± 0.18) |
|
S
SFR
|
71 (± 0.24) |
|
F
Free Mobile
|
69 (± 0.29) |
|
B
Bouygues
|
73 (± 0.25) |
| 3G Video Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
O
Orange
|
53 (± 1.16) |
|
S
SFR
|
45 (± 1.24) |
|
F
Free Mobile
|
35 (± 1.11) |
|
B
Bouygues
|
52 (± 1.35) |
|
Games Experience
Additional Metrics |
O
Orange
|
S
SFR
|
F
Free Mobile
|
B
Bouygues
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | ||||
|
4G Games Experience
| 81.9 (± 0.49) | 77.0 (± 0.48) | 75.8 (± 0.50) | 76.2 (± 0.52) |
|
3G Games Experience
| 43.6 (± 1.60) | 37.1 (± 0.28) | 43.7 (± 1.13) | 39.0 (± 0.28) |
| 4G Games Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
O
Orange
|
82 (± 0.49) |
|
S
SFR
|
77 (± 0.48) |
|
F
Free Mobile
|
76 (± 0.50) |
|
B
Bouygues
|
76 (± 0.52) |
| 3G Games Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
O
Orange
|
44 (± 1.60) |
|
S
SFR
|
37 (± 0.28) |
|
F
Free Mobile
|
44 (± 1.13) |
|
B
Bouygues
|
39 (± 0.28) |
|
Voice App Experience
Additional Metrics |
O
Orange
|
S
SFR
|
F
Free Mobile
|
B
Bouygues
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | ||||
|
4G Voice App Experience
| 81.2 (± 0.14) | 80.2 (± 0.15) | 79.8 (± 0.16) | 79.9 (± 0.15) |
|
3G Voice App Experience
| 74.0 (± 0.52) | 68.2 (± 0.63) | 72.2 (± 0.41) | 71.2 (± 0.57) |
| 4G Voice App Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
O
Orange
|
81 (± 0.14) |
|
S
SFR
|
80 (± 0.15) |
|
F
Free Mobile
|
80 (± 0.16) |
|
B
Bouygues
|
80 (± 0.15) |
| 3G Voice App Experience | in 0-100 points |
|
O
Orange
|
74 (± 0.52) |
|
S
SFR
|
68 (± 0.63) |
|
F
Free Mobile
|
72 (± 0.41) |
|
B
Bouygues
|
71 (± 0.57) |
|
Download Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
O
Orange
|
S
SFR
|
F
Free Mobile
|
B
Bouygues
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | ||||
|
4G Download Speed
| 46.9 (± 0.38) | 27.4 (± 0.24) | 26.0 (± 0.25) | 28.9 (± 0.26) |
|
3G Download Speed
| 5.3 (± 0.10) | 4.7 (± 0.12) | 3.1 (± 0.07) | 5.0 (± 0.13) |
| 4G Download Speed | in Mbps |
|
O
Orange
|
47 (± 0.38) |
|
S
SFR
|
27 (± 0.24) |
|
F
Free Mobile
|
26 (± 0.25) |
|
B
Bouygues
|
29 (± 0.26) |
| 3G Download Speed | in Mbps |
|
O
Orange
|
5 (± 0.10) |
|
S
SFR
|
5 (± 0.12) |
|
F
Free Mobile
|
3 (± 0.07) |
|
B
Bouygues
|
5 (± 0.13) |
|
Upload Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
O
Orange
|
S
SFR
|
F
Free Mobile
|
B
Bouygues
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | ||||
|
4G Upload Speed
| 10.1 (± 0.10) | 7.8 (± 0.08) | 6.9 (± 0.08) | 7.8 (± 0.08) |
|
3G Upload Speed
| 1.3 (± 0.04) | 1.3 (± 0.05) | 0.8 (± 0.02) | 1.3 (± 0.05) |
| 4G Upload Speed | in Mbps |
|
O
Orange
|
10 (± 0.10) |
|
S
SFR
|
8 (± 0.08) |
|
F
Free Mobile
|
7 (± 0.08) |
|
B
Bouygues
|
8 (± 0.08) |
| 3G Upload Speed | in Mbps |
|
O
Orange
|
1 (± 0.04) |
|
S
SFR
|
1 (± 0.05) |
|
F
Free Mobile
|
1 (± 0.02) |
|
B
Bouygues
|
1 (± 0.05) |
Collecting billions of individual measurements daily from over 100 million devices globally, Opensignal independently analyzes mobile user experience on every major network operator around the globe.
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