Did SFR, Free, Orange and Bouygues Telecom artificially boost their network to be better placed in the annual assessment of mobile networks by Arcep, the French telecoms regulator? As revealed by L’Informé on Tuesday, February 4, the question arises. Especially since the Electronic Communications and Postal Regulatory Authority has, according to our colleagues, opened an investigation into this matter.
The events allegedly took place between May and July, when readings were being taken. Every year, Arcep awards the title of "Best mobile network in France" in October.
The data collected must be made reliable
To do this, it measures, via a service provider, the quality of service in terms of speed, coverage, and mobile calls. But last year (2024), a problem arose: the annual inventory, usually published in October, was postponed. The reason? The authority must still "conduct additional analyses to make reliable" the data collected, it explains in a terse press release dated December 4. But the reasons would be much deeper, underline our colleagues, who were able to access the authority's deliberation of September 2024, a deliberation that has not been made public.
Last year, a service provider – AFD.Tech – did indeed carry out measurements on the mobile network of French operators. But data collected at the level of downstream speeds raises questions – particularly those concerning dense areas (agglomerations of more than 200,000 inhabitants) and intermediate areas (between 10,000 and 200,000 inhabitants). The latter would reveal "differences that are far too significant". Are these anomalies the result of a bug or deliberate manipulation?
Technical parameters that could affect the results?
For Laure de la Raudière, head of Arcep, these disparities "raise questions about the presence of specific technical parameters, equipment or functionalities deployed differently, that could affect the results of mobile service quality measurements," she explains in the deliberation, quoted by our colleagues. No operator among SFR, Free, Orange and Bouygues Telecom is named.
The investigation opened will help understand where these "performance gaps" come from. The objective is "to eliminate any bias in the quality of service measured on mobile operators' networks, which could distort competition between operators," it is written in the deliberation.
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