Mobile networks: UFC-Que Choisir denounces the worsening of the digital divide

Just a few months later the launch of its in-house speedtest, entitled Queldébit, UFC-Que Choisir delivers the first classes to be realized about the high quality of cellular networks supplied to the normal public and professionals. “While Arcep, to establish its ranking, performs thousands of measurements in all corners of the country, our new tool has given us the possibility of collecting, in just a few months, valuable data on the mobile connections of French people” , specifies in the preamble the affiliation for the protection of customers.

“The first observation is that the four mobile networks available in France do not really offer the same performance. Overall, that of Orange is well above average,” she argues. It underlines the undeniable fact that the incumbent operator's community has supplied the greatest speeds in latest months according to the estimates resulting from its application, and based mostly on “thousands of speed tests”, with a mean of 12.8 Mb / s down and 61.5 Mb / s up.

“These good results did not really surprise us. It must be said that with its nearly 20 million mobile telephony customers, the operator has an unrivaled strike force. Thanks to this decisive advantage, it was able to deploy a large number of antennas throughout the territory and obtain the most efficient frequencies during the auctions organized by Arcep”, argues the group.

Orange will get the greatest of its rivals

For the latter, “the competitors of this undisputed leader compete for the other places on the podium”, even when, “depending on the criteria, the order varies”. As far as speeds are involved, SFR stands out as Orange's pure dolphin, with common speeds of 10.6 Mb/s downlink and 40.7 Mb/s uplink. The red-squared model is forward of Bouygues Telecom on this level (with averages estimated at 11.1 Mb/s downlink and 36.5 Mb/s uplink), in addition to Free, which affords common speeds s amounting to eight.9 Mb/s taking place and 37.5 Mb/s going up.

“Regarding the loading time of web pages, this time it is Bouygues that distances SFR and Free”, additionally notes the affiliation, for which the “three challengers [d'Orange] are held in a pocket handkerchief”. UFC-Que Choisir, nevertheless, invitations the normal public to be cautious of figures and to choose an total image to orient themselves in the affords supplied to them.

“On the one hand, these are national averages: depending on where you are, Orange may very well be overtaken by a competitor. On the other hand, the differences between the networks remain generally quite low. The real impact should ultimately remain relatively limited, even imperceptible,” she believes.

Networks of cities, networks of fields?

For the affiliation, the different lesson to be realized from the first outcomes of its speedtest is in highlighting the digital divide affecting France. “A gap separates the cities and the countryside in terms of performance,” she regrets, supporting figures.

“While the average download speed enjoyed by Orange customers residing in urban areas is 79 Mb/s (megabits per second), it is only 41 Mb/s in rural areas. As for the upstream speed, it goes from 16 to 9 Mb/s”, underlines the latter by approach of instance. The digital divide between rural and urbanized territories can also be noticed with regard to the loading of internet pages. “According to our own results, at Orange, this is the case for 89% of web pages in rural areas and 96% in urban areas, a difference of 9 points. Except that 10 seconds for a web page to come up is a long time,” she says.

And to drive the level residence by noting that “this disparity between telephony in cities and telephony in the fields is unfortunately not about to disappear, quite the contrary”. And if, “as the telecoms authority asserts, common speeds improve in all places in France […] it's clear that they have a tendency to rise sooner in city areas than in rural areas, which additional aggravates the digital divide between territories”.

Towards a worsening of the digital divide?

“The problem is that the operators may boast of deploying 4G in the countryside, they continue to devote the vast majority of their investments to improving their service in dense regions”, regrets the affiliation. of client safety. Among the explanations put ahead by the group is “the explosion of bandwidth-intensive uses, such as video or videoconferencing”.

In truth, fastened networks alone is not going to be sufficient to make up for the “holes in the racket” of cellular networks, though the switchover interval from copper to fiber which is about to happen over the subsequent few years makes some folks worry elected representatives from rural areas an aggravation of the digital divide in sure areas already missing connectivity. As for various options, comparable to satellite tv for pc Internet, its use by the inhabitants of rural areas stays minor.

“If they even want to maintain their quality of service, they have no choice but to increase the capacities of existing antennas and add new ones. It is at this price that they can always boast of offering the best mobile network, ”concludes UFC-Que Choisir. It's as much as the operators to play.