Free Mobile has rolled out its 3G network to reach 78% of the French population, thereby meeting the requirements of its licence.
In January Arcep asked Free to prove that its network met the coverage obligation imposed by its 3G licence. The regulator said it would carry out a series of tests on the network to verify the accuracy of Free’s coverage map.
Iliad’s Free acquired its licence in 2010 and launched services in January 2012, relying mainly on a roaming deal with Orange for coverage while it built out its own network. The terms of the licence required Free to cover at least 75% of the population of metropolitan France with its own 3G infrastructure by 12 January this year.
"Despite a difficult backdrop for mobile network rollouts, Free Mobile has managed to deploy around 5,000 sites," the telco said in a statement on Friday.
Challenges included the requirement to comply with laws linked to exposure to electromagnetic waves and to co-owned properties, Free said. It also implied that it had had difficulty gaining access to sites used by other operators, even though such access is mandated by their respective licenc es.
The firm said it aims to reach 90% of the population by January 2018.
In addition, it expects its 4G network coverage to reach 60% of the population by the end of this year.
Free insists it is putting its money where its mouth is. The telco’s capex-to-sales ratio stood at 23.2% last year, while its three competitors in the mobile network space recorded ratios of 14.5%-15.6%.
Of course, Orange, Bouygues Telecom and Numericable-SFR have been investing in mobile infrastructure for a much longer period.
