8 ms·

How France’s Free will reinvent mobile

238 points by jaybol 15y ago

GuiA 15y ago
I'm French, and moved to the US a couple years ago. The high price and awkwardness of internet and mobile phone offers here compared to France is one of the biggest tech differences that struck me, as I always had imagined that the US would be far ahead. I still don't own a smartphone (I use Google Voice most of the time at home/work, and a pay-as-you-go phone the rest of time), because the offers and price just don't make sense to me. It's clearly a market that's ripe for disruption, and there are a couple interesting and promising startups in that space, although I'm not sure how likely it is to change given the huge monopoly and control the carriers have consistently had.
- baby 15y ago
  Same in Canada. Pricing of mobile and internet is crazy compared to France, as well as internet speed... I don't get it.
  - babebridou 15y ago
    DSL Internet speed can be explained, according to my brother who lives in the US, with the way that local carriers segmented the broadband network by area. ISPs in the US, maybe in Canada too?, apparently benefit from a quasi-monopoly per location, whereas in France network access is national and guaranteed, meaning that wherever you are in the territory, you can subscribe to any DSL offer from any ISP as a form of public service. As a result, in 2002, Free came up with their disruptive all-in-one 30€/month DSL box. The announcement single-handedly killed AOL France which was offering 45€/month for an inferior service, like the rest of the competition. The survivors had to align their prices, and there was much pain and rejoicing. What I saw this morning could be history repeating itself. I wouldn't be surprised to see Bouygues Telecom (the "weaker" of the three legacy Mobile Carriers) shut down within months. However you put it, Free's offer is both superior on paper and cheaper than the competition. I'm not sure about pricing of mobile plans compared to French ones, it was actually the opposite when I did a quick survey of iPhone plans comparing France's Orange to USA's AT&T offers, I saw something like a 30% cheaper phone and a 10% cheaper plan in the US than in France with napkin maths for taxes. One thing is for sure, we've had quadruple play offers for a while now, and the very low DSL price since 2002 helped a lot with the overall family budget.
    - masklinn 15y ago
      > I'm not sure about pricing of mobile plans compared to French ones, it was actually the opposite when I did a quick survey of iPhone plans comparing France's Orange to USA's AT&T offers, I saw something like a 30% cheaper phone and a 10% cheaper plan in the US than in France with napkin maths for taxes. Yep, France had/has very good broadband thanks to Free, but the mobile scene is one of the worst in western Europe, pretty much every country around it provides better service at better rates. The "Big Three" (Orange, SFR and Bouygues) have basically colluded to keep prices high and offers dreadfully opaque rates (to avoid easy comparisons between providers), and so far MVNOs have not managed to dent this. French MVNOs also tend to be even worse than the big tree for data. Free has both name recognition and a very good offer probably piggybacking on the forces it built as a broadband carrier, I fully expect the big three to get pulled kicking and screaming into finally providing descent service. Or dying. That would be nice too.
- mekoka 15y ago
  Well, your question includes the answer itself. The US is not the anomaly, France is and for a very specific reason: Free. France would have been in the exact same situation as the US if Free had not been a disrupter. Free isn't the natural byproduct of the sane telecom environment that existed in France at the moment of its inception. It's rather an initiative championed by very very smart people, with very decent ethics. So the question isn't so much, why the US (and Canada) have such gouging prices, but rather what could be done to recreate the Free experiment there.
  - sasvari 15y ago
    Is that really the case? In other parts of Europe we don't have Free, and still prices for mobile and internet (speed might be better in a lot of areas as well, especially considering the price/speed ratio) are way more convenient, AFAIK.
    - tonfa 15y ago
      France is still one of the cheapest country for landline internet (the standard price is ~30 EUR/month for 20+ Mb/s, with unlimited landline calls and tv).
      - hessenwolf 15y ago
        France from what I hear is ahead, but the UK, Italy, Germany and Ireland that I know of are nowhere near as backwards as the US in respect of mobile access.
      - albxn 15y ago
        Yes. Thanks to Free. They created the box (internet + tv), the price point, unlimited landline calls.
      - StavrosK 15y ago
        That's about right for Greece as well, if I recall correctly.
      - danieldk 15y ago
cm-t 15y ago
On live at live.free.fr
enqk 15y ago
So, unlimited data & calls for 19.99 €, with a reduced price of 15.99 € for customers of the broadband plan. And a specially priced 2 €/month plan (60min calls / 60sms.)
- nicolas314 15y ago
  Subscription for 1h voice + 60 SMS per month is free (as in free beer) for broadband customers. My kids will immediately get SIM cards! Prices available at http://mobile.free.fr http://mobile.free.fr
  - agumonkey 15y ago
    But he said 'you can have a ..' was he specific ? one per house ? or as many as needed ?
    - babebridou 15y ago
      the first one is free. The others are either 2€ or 14.99€
      - cgrand-net 15y ago
        Just to be clear: the first 1h plan is free (for broadband customers).
      - agumonkey 15y ago
        makes sense, and it's still a bargain for mundane cellphone users. thanks
- babebridou 15y ago
  The first "2€" mobile plan is completely free if you are a broadband customer. This puts the family budget down to something very, very manageable. None of the plans include any sort of 12/24month lockout. Devices payment over up to 36months no additional charges. This is aggressive, very aggressive disruption.
pefavre 15y ago
They did it! Unlimited calls, national and international; 3Go fair use of data; for 15,99€/mth (20,4$/mth). That's what I call disruption!
- jan_g 15y ago
  I'd be very careful to jump on the 'unlimited calls' bandwagon. Voip is especially sensitive to fraud, it happens all the time to practically every voip provider that I know of. That's also why 'unlimited' in marketing is often counterbalanced with fair-use and/or minutes cap in small print.
  - babebridou 15y ago
    Niel specifically included all protocols, NNTP, P2P, VoIP etc. when he presented the "unlimited" data plan, to contrast with the kind of data plans the other carriers provide.
  - masklinn 15y ago
    > Voip is especially sensitive to fraud, it happens all the time to practically every voip provider that I know of. Could you clarify what you mean by "fraud"? Free has been leading VOIP and unlimited calls from set-top boxes so I'm guessing they understand the dynamics of it.
    - jan_g 15y ago
      On one hand I mean classic stuff from provider's perspective, like malevolent user setting up a premium number in some remote country (Afganistan, Nigeria, etc.) with insane rates (5$/minute and more), which he is calling for long periods. This is often completely automated with multiple simultaneous calls on multiple premium numbers and callee is actually an IVR. And you can't touch the user, because you've promised him unlimited calls. Such schemes can be even more elaborate with many 'proxy' providers in between, so you don't even know, what is the real cost of the call until after the fact (you receive a giant bill from some remote provider). I've seen examples of voip providers losing thousands of dollars a day and in one case even going under, just because they were unable to respond quickly to fraud. On the other hand I would like to point out the user's perspective. Recently I've read about a case where a blind person calls a lot. Really a lot. Like from the evening to the morning, many days a week, domestic and international calls. It's his form of communication, since he rarely travels abroad or meets with friends in person. So to reduce his monthly bill, he went to a provider that promised unlimited calls. Needless to say, after a few months they've disconnected his number and billed him for premature end of contract (it is customary to sign 2-year contract), citing small print which mentions fair-use.
loup-vaillant 15y ago
This sounds great. Can't wait to see the detailed terms. Even better, it appears that Free will propose actual internet connexions with their data plan. Quoting http://www.forfaitfree.com/ http://www.forfaitfree.com/ (translated from French): > 9h16 : According to Free, the Internet is e-mail, the web, newsgroups, P2P, etc. So, an actual, unrestricted internet. I just hope they do mean to give you a public IP (I'd be content with a /64v6, and delighted if it was a static one.)
- wazoox 15y ago
  Free still has great usenet (including binaries) servers, while most other ISP dropped it. Free provides only static IP addresses, and was among the firsts to provide complete IPv6. Free is very hacker friendly; as a matter of fact, all the "Free guys" I know are real, bearded hackers :)
  - delroth 15y ago
    They even have active support newsgroups with employees answering technical questions.
- lloeki 15y ago
  Hell I'd be happy if they handled a /128, since none of the other players seem to be remotely interested in v6. Bouygues actually uses double-NATing.
agumonkey 15y ago
I thought they couldn't pull a small sized contract, but they did it. 2 euros for 60min/60sms is almost a social advance.. ~5 times less than the average 60min contract, and 7 times personnally.
- lloeki 15y ago
  Actually there exists a mandatory (by law) social service in France, which has been mocked by Free as a fraud (40min and 40sms for 10€, available only under certain income criterias)
- masklinn 15y ago
  > 2 euros for 60min/60sms is almost a social advance.. And free if you're already a broadband customer...
chmike 15y ago
According to the live annoucements this morning: Unlimited phone calls into 40 countries, unilimited SMS and MMS, unrestricted internet access up to 3GB : 19.99€/months or 15.99€/months for ADSL Free subscribers. 60min and 60sms : 2€ or 0€ for ADSL Free subscribers. Phones are not include but can be bought with independent 12, 24, 36 months credit plan. ie. iPhone 4Gs is provided with 1€ entry and 19.99€/months over 36 months.
- baby 15y ago
  > unrestricted internet access up to 3GB : they lower the speed after. > Phones are not include but can be bought with independent 12, 24, 36 months credit plan and 0% interest.
  - Fabimaru 15y ago
    Not exactly. For an iphone 4S 16Go, Apple price is 629€ and Free price is 720€ (over 24 or 36 months), so it makes something like a 9% or 13% credit.
- lloeki 15y ago
  Note that those offers are for the first 3 million subscribers.
  - elisee 15y ago
    According to this tweet (https://twitter.com/#!/earlyad/status/156713473559113728 https://twitter.com/#!/earlyad/status/156713473559113728), Mr. Niel said "When reaching 3 million subscribers, we'll either keep the offer or improve it. No price increase."
lolizbak 15y ago
A great demonstration of a market disruption by pricing. Xavier Niel's show was a mix of Jobs (staging, rhythm, ...) and Bezos (pricing, competition, ...). Wow !
- babebridou 15y ago
  The comparison with Jobs is very far-fetched in my opinion. Niel was rude, aggressive, partisan, almost violent with his words, and was all around not a good orator. The show was a blast nevertheless!
  - agumonkey 15y ago
    He had no Jobsness, but the talk structure is Applian all the way. Taking the 'State of the Art' (sic) , breaking it down to expose flaws, then giving more.
  - lolizbak 15y ago
    Ok, maybe far-fetched you're right. But a class of its own with the old-fashioned movie at the beginning, the simple charts and slides, liked it :)
  - fab13n 15y ago
    These days, as soon as a CEO goes on stage to present his disruptive product, and does it in a customer-oriented rather than shareholder-oriented way (casual vocabulary, no tie), he's deemed Jobsian. That's obviously a gross reduction of what Job's Way was, but it is Job's most enduring legacy to the corporate communication world. Besides, being "rude, aggressive, partisan, almost violent" sounds hardly un-jobsy, although he tamed it down during keynotes.
- ned 15y ago
  It's also disruption by simplicity: – the Terms and Conditions sheet will only be "one page long" and "understandable by anyone", compared to the multiple pages of legalese of the current operators; – they only have 2 offers (with a variant for current clients), compared to hundreds from the competition. We all know the value of simplicity when making purchasing decisions (explained in The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz). Well done Free.
baby 15y ago
Trying to watch the conference[1]. Some people compared that guy to Steve Jobs, I personally think he's not a good orator but is trying to be. His first lines were "we are dumbasses, but now you guys are the dumbasses not me because I already joined free mobile". Pretty aggressive. He's a fantastic engineer though. Trying to stream more and will edit after. edit: having a really hard time to stream. Words that come back a lot in the first 10 minutes: "ras le bol" ("discontent" in a familiar way). He's insulting a lot the 3 other operators, give numbers and the source! (I like). It's actually very catchy to watch eventhough I think it's pretty brutal for an official show supposed to launch the 4th big operator in France. edit2: apparently SFR one of their big competition is doing really bad in stocks these few minutes[2] and the first trend is indeed #freemobile[3] on twitter. edit3: found a better link for the show[4]. Just finished it. Brilliant. The show was simple, as simple as the offer (only 2 plans). Brutal, easy to watch, beautiful. As he said at the end of the video, there will be a before and an after january 10th in France (something you cannot really grasp if you're not from there). [1] http://live.free.fr/ http://live.free.fr/ [2] http://bourse.sfr.fr/actions/cours/vivendi-FR0000127771,FR.html http://bourse.sfr.fr/actions/cours/vivendi-FR0000127771,FR.h... [3] https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23FreeMobile https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23FreeMobile [4] http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xmsvx2_free-lancement-de-l-offre-mobile_tech?start=0#from=embediframe http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xmsvx2_free-lancement-de-l-...
mmahemoff 15y ago
This deal is great in France, then go five minutes across any of its borders and you'll be paying a multiple of Euros per megabyte. Someone, maybe Free, needs to deal with pan-Europe roaming with the same disruptive vigour Free is dealing with the domestic French market.
- vidarh 15y ago
  > This deal is great in France, then go five minutes across any of its borders and you'll be paying a multiple of Euros per megabyte. No you don't: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/roaming/regulation/index_en.htm http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/roaming/r... "As of July 2011: Prices for mobile roaming calls are reduced further with a maximum tariff of €0.35 per minute for calls made and €0.11 per minute for calls received. The maximum wholesale prices for data roaming fall from €0.80 to €0.50 per MB." Still not cheap, but certainly not multiples of Euros per MB.
  - mmahemoff 15y ago
    Key word here is "wholesale". For the most part, it simply limits the amount of funny-money transactions between subsidiaries, as far as I can tell. Consumers, including the many people trying to do business in Europe, still get fleeced at Euros per MB. Also, the directive above only applies to EU nations, not all of Europe.
ravloony 15y ago
I remember when I got to university (Nantes, France). On my very first day, another guy said to me: "By the way if you are shopping around an internet connection, go with Free, they rock!". No other user has ever said that to me about a telecoms company. Not once. And they did rock. It cost 29.99€ per month for 2MB/s at the time (2003), which was 4 to 20 times the competition (my brother had a 128kb/s connection, I seem to recall - it took ages to download songs from napster. It kept on getting better, too. Within 6 months I had 8Mb/s, and a year after that 18, then 24. The modem was huge, but it told the time in letters of green, and had its own IP adress. I lived in a tiny flat in the same building as my other brother, so we trailed a network cable across the corridor - enough bandwidth for both of us. We moved to a new flat, and they upgraded the modem, or Freebox (every modem in France is now called *box) That was one of the most successful market disruptions I have had the opportunity to witness. I think M. Niel just did it again. He's turned the leaders of a market into followers, desperately copying his every move. Watch and you'll see. They already started, trying to undercut what they thought was Free's offer with Sosh (Orange) and Red (SFR). Too little, too late. I think the market will vote with it's wallet. Things should get interesting.
- babebridou 15y ago
  Official press releases from competitor Orange says (paraphrasing): "Dear customers, we will let Free celebrate their D-Day, but stay assured we will make sure to come back to you later." All online & phone services for ending or transferring mobile contracts are of course overloaded and currently unavailable in France. FreeMobile's registration webpage (http://mobile.free.fr http://mobile.free.fr) has been unavailable for the past 5 hours. Figures fly on twitter, as apparently about 1.5 million people tried to access it this morning. Streaming figures for the live keynote amount to 80Gb/seconds over 300 servers, Online.net representative @Online_fr said on twitter. Apparently 600,000 people watched the keynote live, Online.net even claimed it's a world record. (Online.net = Iliad/Free subsidiary dedicated to hosting services) You are indeed witnessing Market Disruption - that or a highly successful launch, maybe a bit too successful :)
- baby 15y ago
  The introduction of Free on the provider market was a huge disruption. We used to had crappy prices with crappy services before free came around. Actually the big one was France Télécome (Wanadoo/Orange) who is also one of the big one (or was?) in the mobile market.
swalsh 15y ago
I'd be curious to see the level of quality in their service. They probably have an advantage of the box being connected directly to their network. However It has been my experience that femtocells are bad at switching from the micronetwork to the macronetwork. Though my best guess is that is related to latency..
stewbrew 15y ago
While this might be a nice move for people living in France, I fail to see the relevance of this post at a global (or even European) level.
- r00fus 15y ago
  Perhaps it's to see how we can reproduce it here. Or why we can't (possible: over-litigious society + corrupt judiciary).
  - stewbrew 15y ago
    I have no idea what you are referring to.
gcp 15y ago
Is this the same company that "reinvented" the GPL by claiming that as you "rent" your modem (chock-full of GPL software) from them, they are not distributing anything and they do not have to abide by the GPL? (Feel free to correct me if they have changed their stance)
- obtu 15y ago
  They have fixed that recently: http://floss.freebox.fr/ http://floss.freebox.fr/ Here's the press release from FSF France (in French): http://fsffrance.org/news/article2011-09-14.fr.html http://fsffrance.org/news/article2011-09-14.fr.html
sp332 15y ago
How can you get 28 Mbit/s over DSL? I'm only 2 miles from my DSLAM and I can't get more than 1.5 Mbit/s.
- masklinn 15y ago
  It's "up to" 28Mb. But technically it's called G.992.5, colloquially known as "ADSL2+"[0]. You need a capable DSLAM and to be close to it, and you need good-quality phone lines. Distance-wise, we're talking about 1km for max throughput (0.6m), 2m gives a maximum of ~8Mb/s on ADSL2+ (may be above with very good lines providing little attenuation). At 1.5Mb, either you're on 1.5Mb ADSL to start with, or you have fairly crummy lines between you and your DSLAM. You should check the attenuation. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADSL2%2B http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADSL2%2B
goodweeds 15y ago
Sounds somewhat like a rip-off of republicwireless.com
- toomuchtodo 15y ago
  Republicwireless is beholden to Sprint for the cellular side, and handles the Wifi/termination with Amazon AWS and their Bandwidth.com hardware (Republic/Bandwidth are the same org). Free owns more of the infrastructure; they're not ripping off Republic, just doing what Republic is doing better.
goodweeds 15y ago
Sounds somewhat like a rip-off of republicwireless.com
blahedo 15y ago
This is brilliant: "For example, Free.fr used the set-top box for automatically sharing a portion of one’s broadband connection via Wi-Fi with other Free.fr customers."
- jtheory 15y ago
  That's not "new", anymore -- SFR and Orange do the same as well now. But yes, it's a great idea. As the owner of the set-top box, you're allowed to configure it to disable that, but virtually no one does -- because the usage from outside is always fairly minimal (but when you're traveling it can really come in handy).
jtheory 15y ago
Here's the part that really piqued my interest: This Free.Fr free Wi-Fi network is going to play a pivotal role in the soon-to-be-launched service, which will be using 42 Mbps HSPA+ technology. The company has built a network of 15,000 macrocells, but those 5 million “nano cells” are going to be the key difference maker, Niel points out. Free.fr’s newer set-top boxes will have built-in femtocells. I live in a rural part of France, and my village sits in a mobile signal dead zone. My mobile phone only gets reception up in the attic of my house (0 bars, otherwise, usually), or I can go outside and walk a half km to make a (poor quality) call. I do have DSL, though... is this (above) finally going to give me mobile reception, through a set-top box? (Please please please?)

238 points by jaybol 15y ago

GuiA 15y ago

I'm French, and moved to the US a couple years ago. The high price and awkwardness of internet and mobile phone offers here compared to France is one of the biggest tech differences that struck me, as I always had imagined that the US would be far ahead. I still don't own a smartphone (I use Google Voice most of the time at home/work, and a pay-as-you-go phone the rest of time), because the offers and price just don't make sense to me. It's clearly a market that's ripe for disruption, and there are a couple interesting and promising startups in that space, although I'm not sure how likely it is to change given the huge monopoly and control the carriers have consistently had.

baby 15y ago
Same in Canada. Pricing of mobile and internet is crazy compared to France, as well as internet speed... I don't get it.
- babebridou 15y ago
  DSL Internet speed can be explained, according to my brother who lives in the US, with the way that local carriers segmented the broadband network by area. ISPs in the US, maybe in Canada too?, apparently benefit from a quasi-monopoly per location, whereas in France network access is national and guaranteed, meaning that wherever you are in the territory, you can subscribe to any DSL offer from any ISP as a form of public service. As a result, in 2002, Free came up with their disruptive all-in-one 30€/month DSL box. The announcement single-handedly killed AOL France which was offering 45€/month for an inferior service, like the rest of the competition. The survivors had to align their prices, and there was much pain and rejoicing. What I saw this morning could be history repeating itself. I wouldn't be surprised to see Bouygues Telecom (the "weaker" of the three legacy Mobile Carriers) shut down within months. However you put it, Free's offer is both superior on paper and cheaper than the competition. I'm not sure about pricing of mobile plans compared to French ones, it was actually the opposite when I did a quick survey of iPhone plans comparing France's Orange to USA's AT&T offers, I saw something like a 30% cheaper phone and a 10% cheaper plan in the US than in France with napkin maths for taxes. One thing is for sure, we've had quadruple play offers for a while now, and the very low DSL price since 2002 helped a lot with the overall family budget.
  - masklinn 15y ago
    > I'm not sure about pricing of mobile plans compared to French ones, it was actually the opposite when I did a quick survey of iPhone plans comparing France's Orange to USA's AT&T offers, I saw something like a 30% cheaper phone and a 10% cheaper plan in the US than in France with napkin maths for taxes. Yep, France had/has very good broadband thanks to Free, but the mobile scene is one of the worst in western Europe, pretty much every country around it provides better service at better rates. The "Big Three" (Orange, SFR and Bouygues) have basically colluded to keep prices high and offers dreadfully opaque rates (to avoid easy comparisons between providers), and so far MVNOs have not managed to dent this. French MVNOs also tend to be even worse than the big tree for data. Free has both name recognition and a very good offer probably piggybacking on the forces it built as a broadband carrier, I fully expect the big three to get pulled kicking and screaming into finally providing descent service. Or dying. That would be nice too.
mekoka 15y ago
Well, your question includes the answer itself. The US is not the anomaly, France is and for a very specific reason: Free. France would have been in the exact same situation as the US if Free had not been a disrupter. Free isn't the natural byproduct of the sane telecom environment that existed in France at the moment of its inception. It's rather an initiative championed by very very smart people, with very decent ethics. So the question isn't so much, why the US (and Canada) have such gouging prices, but rather what could be done to recreate the Free experiment there.
- sasvari 15y ago
  Is that really the case? In other parts of Europe we don't have Free, and still prices for mobile and internet (speed might be better in a lot of areas as well, especially considering the price/speed ratio) are way more convenient, AFAIK.
  - tonfa 15y ago
    France is still one of the cheapest country for landline internet (the standard price is ~30 EUR/month for 20+ Mb/s, with unlimited landline calls and tv).
    - hessenwolf 15y ago
      France from what I hear is ahead, but the UK, Italy, Germany and Ireland that I know of are nowhere near as backwards as the US in respect of mobile access.
    - albxn 15y ago
      Yes. Thanks to Free. They created the box (internet + tv), the price point, unlimited landline calls.
    - StavrosK 15y ago
      That's about right for Greece as well, if I recall correctly.
    - danieldk 15y ago

cm-t 15y ago

On live at live.free.fr

enqk 15y ago

So, unlimited data & calls for 19.99 €, with a reduced price of 15.99 € for customers of the broadband plan. And a specially priced 2 €/month plan (60min calls / 60sms.)

nicolas314 15y ago
Subscription for 1h voice + 60 SMS per month is free (as in free beer) for broadband customers. My kids will immediately get SIM cards! Prices available at http://mobile.free.fr http://mobile.free.fr
- agumonkey 15y ago
  But he said 'you can have a ..' was he specific ? one per house ? or as many as needed ?
  - babebridou 15y ago
    the first one is free. The others are either 2€ or 14.99€
    - cgrand-net 15y ago
      Just to be clear: the first 1h plan is free (for broadband customers).
    - agumonkey 15y ago
      makes sense, and it's still a bargain for mundane cellphone users. thanks
babebridou 15y ago
The first "2€" mobile plan is completely free if you are a broadband customer. This puts the family budget down to something very, very manageable. None of the plans include any sort of 12/24month lockout. Devices payment over up to 36months no additional charges. This is aggressive, very aggressive disruption.

pefavre 15y ago

They did it! Unlimited calls, national and international; 3Go fair use of data; for 15,99€/mth (20,4$/mth). That's what I call disruption!

jan_g 15y ago
I'd be very careful to jump on the 'unlimited calls' bandwagon. Voip is especially sensitive to fraud, it happens all the time to practically every voip provider that I know of. That's also why 'unlimited' in marketing is often counterbalanced with fair-use and/or minutes cap in small print.
- babebridou 15y ago
  Niel specifically included all protocols, NNTP, P2P, VoIP etc. when he presented the "unlimited" data plan, to contrast with the kind of data plans the other carriers provide.
- masklinn 15y ago
  > Voip is especially sensitive to fraud, it happens all the time to practically every voip provider that I know of. Could you clarify what you mean by "fraud"? Free has been leading VOIP and unlimited calls from set-top boxes so I'm guessing they understand the dynamics of it.
  - jan_g 15y ago
    On one hand I mean classic stuff from provider's perspective, like malevolent user setting up a premium number in some remote country (Afganistan, Nigeria, etc.) with insane rates (5$/minute and more), which he is calling for long periods. This is often completely automated with multiple simultaneous calls on multiple premium numbers and callee is actually an IVR. And you can't touch the user, because you've promised him unlimited calls. Such schemes can be even more elaborate with many 'proxy' providers in between, so you don't even know, what is the real cost of the call until after the fact (you receive a giant bill from some remote provider). I've seen examples of voip providers losing thousands of dollars a day and in one case even going under, just because they were unable to respond quickly to fraud. On the other hand I would like to point out the user's perspective. Recently I've read about a case where a blind person calls a lot. Really a lot. Like from the evening to the morning, many days a week, domestic and international calls. It's his form of communication, since he rarely travels abroad or meets with friends in person. So to reduce his monthly bill, he went to a provider that promised unlimited calls. Needless to say, after a few months they've disconnected his number and billed him for premature end of contract (it is customary to sign 2-year contract), citing small print which mentions fair-use.

loup-vaillant 15y ago

This sounds great. Can't wait to see the detailed terms. Even better, it appears that Free will propose actual internet connexions with their data plan. Quoting http://www.forfaitfree.com/ http://www.forfaitfree.com/ (translated from French): > 9h16 : According to Free, the Internet is e-mail, the web, newsgroups, P2P, etc. So, an actual, unrestricted internet. I just hope they do mean to give you a public IP (I'd be content with a /64v6, and delighted if it was a static one.)

wazoox 15y ago
Free still has great usenet (including binaries) servers, while most other ISP dropped it. Free provides only static IP addresses, and was among the firsts to provide complete IPv6. Free is very hacker friendly; as a matter of fact, all the "Free guys" I know are real, bearded hackers :)
- delroth 15y ago
  They even have active support newsgroups with employees answering technical questions.
lloeki 15y ago
Hell I'd be happy if they handled a /128, since none of the other players seem to be remotely interested in v6. Bouygues actually uses double-NATing.

agumonkey 15y ago

I thought they couldn't pull a small sized contract, but they did it. 2 euros for 60min/60sms is almost a social advance.. ~5 times less than the average 60min contract, and 7 times personnally.

lloeki 15y ago
Actually there exists a mandatory (by law) social service in France, which has been mocked by Free as a fraud (40min and 40sms for 10€, available only under certain income criterias)
masklinn 15y ago
> 2 euros for 60min/60sms is almost a social advance.. And free if you're already a broadband customer...

chmike 15y ago

According to the live annoucements this morning: Unlimited phone calls into 40 countries, unilimited SMS and MMS, unrestricted internet access up to 3GB : 19.99€/months or 15.99€/months for ADSL Free subscribers. 60min and 60sms : 2€ or 0€ for ADSL Free subscribers. Phones are not include but can be bought with independent 12, 24, 36 months credit plan. ie. iPhone 4Gs is provided with 1€ entry and 19.99€/months over 36 months.

baby 15y ago
> unrestricted internet access up to 3GB : they lower the speed after. > Phones are not include but can be bought with independent 12, 24, 36 months credit plan and 0% interest.
- Fabimaru 15y ago
  Not exactly. For an iphone 4S 16Go, Apple price is 629€ and Free price is 720€ (over 24 or 36 months), so it makes something like a 9% or 13% credit.
lloeki 15y ago
Note that those offers are for the first 3 million subscribers.
- elisee 15y ago
  According to this tweet (https://twitter.com/#!/earlyad/status/156713473559113728 https://twitter.com/#!/earlyad/status/156713473559113728), Mr. Niel said "When reaching 3 million subscribers, we'll either keep the offer or improve it. No price increase."

lolizbak 15y ago

A great demonstration of a market disruption by pricing. Xavier Niel's show was a mix of Jobs (staging, rhythm, ...) and Bezos (pricing, competition, ...). Wow !

babebridou 15y ago
The comparison with Jobs is very far-fetched in my opinion. Niel was rude, aggressive, partisan, almost violent with his words, and was all around not a good orator. The show was a blast nevertheless!
- agumonkey 15y ago
  He had no Jobsness, but the talk structure is Applian all the way. Taking the 'State of the Art' (sic) , breaking it down to expose flaws, then giving more.
- lolizbak 15y ago
  Ok, maybe far-fetched you're right. But a class of its own with the old-fashioned movie at the beginning, the simple charts and slides, liked it :)
- fab13n 15y ago
  These days, as soon as a CEO goes on stage to present his disruptive product, and does it in a customer-oriented rather than shareholder-oriented way (casual vocabulary, no tie), he's deemed Jobsian. That's obviously a gross reduction of what Job's Way was, but it is Job's most enduring legacy to the corporate communication world. Besides, being "rude, aggressive, partisan, almost violent" sounds hardly un-jobsy, although he tamed it down during keynotes.
ned 15y ago
It's also disruption by simplicity: – the Terms and Conditions sheet will only be "one page long" and "understandable by anyone", compared to the multiple pages of legalese of the current operators; – they only have 2 offers (with a variant for current clients), compared to hundreds from the competition. We all know the value of simplicity when making purchasing decisions (explained in The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz). Well done Free.

baby 15y ago

Trying to watch the conference[1]. Some people compared that guy to Steve Jobs, I personally think he's not a good orator but is trying to be. His first lines were "we are dumbasses, but now you guys are the dumbasses not me because I already joined free mobile". Pretty aggressive. He's a fantastic engineer though. Trying to stream more and will edit after. edit: having a really hard time to stream. Words that come back a lot in the first 10 minutes: "ras le bol" ("discontent" in a familiar way). He's insulting a lot the 3 other operators, give numbers and the source! (I like). It's actually very catchy to watch eventhough I think it's pretty brutal for an official show supposed to launch the 4th big operator in France. edit2: apparently SFR one of their big competition is doing really bad in stocks these few minutes[2] and the first trend is indeed #freemobile[3] on twitter. edit3: found a better link for the show[4]. Just finished it. Brilliant. The show was simple, as simple as the offer (only 2 plans). Brutal, easy to watch, beautiful. As he said at the end of the video, there will be a before and an after january 10th in France (something you cannot really grasp if you're not from there). [1] http://live.free.fr/ http://live.free.fr/ [2] http://bourse.sfr.fr/actions/cours/vivendi-FR0000127771,FR.html http://bourse.sfr.fr/actions/cours/vivendi-FR0000127771,FR.h... [3] https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23FreeMobile https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23FreeMobile [4] http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xmsvx2_free-lancement-de-l-offre-mobile_tech?start=0#from=embediframe http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xmsvx2_free-lancement-de-l-...

mmahemoff 15y ago

This deal is great in France, then go five minutes across any of its borders and you'll be paying a multiple of Euros per megabyte. Someone, maybe Free, needs to deal with pan-Europe roaming with the same disruptive vigour Free is dealing with the domestic French market.

vidarh 15y ago
> This deal is great in France, then go five minutes across any of its borders and you'll be paying a multiple of Euros per megabyte. No you don't: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/roaming/regulation/index_en.htm http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/roaming/r... "As of July 2011: Prices for mobile roaming calls are reduced further with a maximum tariff of €0.35 per minute for calls made and €0.11 per minute for calls received. The maximum wholesale prices for data roaming fall from €0.80 to €0.50 per MB." Still not cheap, but certainly not multiples of Euros per MB.
- mmahemoff 15y ago
  Key word here is "wholesale". For the most part, it simply limits the amount of funny-money transactions between subsidiaries, as far as I can tell. Consumers, including the many people trying to do business in Europe, still get fleeced at Euros per MB. Also, the directive above only applies to EU nations, not all of Europe.

ravloony 15y ago

I remember when I got to university (Nantes, France). On my very first day, another guy said to me: "By the way if you are shopping around an internet connection, go with Free, they rock!". No other user has ever said that to me about a telecoms company. Not once. And they did rock. It cost 29.99€ per month for 2MB/s at the time (2003), which was 4 to 20 times the competition (my brother had a 128kb/s connection, I seem to recall - it took ages to download songs from napster. It kept on getting better, too. Within 6 months I had 8Mb/s, and a year after that 18, then 24. The modem was huge, but it told the time in letters of green, and had its own IP adress. I lived in a tiny flat in the same building as my other brother, so we trailed a network cable across the corridor - enough bandwidth for both of us. We moved to a new flat, and they upgraded the modem, or Freebox (every modem in France is now called *box) That was one of the most successful market disruptions I have had the opportunity to witness. I think M. Niel just did it again. He's turned the leaders of a market into followers, desperately copying his every move. Watch and you'll see. They already started, trying to undercut what they thought was Free's offer with Sosh (Orange) and Red (SFR). Too little, too late. I think the market will vote with it's wallet. Things should get interesting.

babebridou 15y ago
Official press releases from competitor Orange says (paraphrasing): "Dear customers, we will let Free celebrate their D-Day, but stay assured we will make sure to come back to you later." All online & phone services for ending or transferring mobile contracts are of course overloaded and currently unavailable in France. FreeMobile's registration webpage (http://mobile.free.fr http://mobile.free.fr) has been unavailable for the past 5 hours. Figures fly on twitter, as apparently about 1.5 million people tried to access it this morning. Streaming figures for the live keynote amount to 80Gb/seconds over 300 servers, Online.net representative @Online_fr said on twitter. Apparently 600,000 people watched the keynote live, Online.net even claimed it's a world record. (Online.net = Iliad/Free subsidiary dedicated to hosting services) You are indeed witnessing Market Disruption - that or a highly successful launch, maybe a bit too successful :)
baby 15y ago
The introduction of Free on the provider market was a huge disruption. We used to had crappy prices with crappy services before free came around. Actually the big one was France Télécome (Wanadoo/Orange) who is also one of the big one (or was?) in the mobile market.

swalsh 15y ago

I'd be curious to see the level of quality in their service. They probably have an advantage of the box being connected directly to their network. However It has been my experience that femtocells are bad at switching from the micronetwork to the macronetwork. Though my best guess is that is related to latency..

stewbrew 15y ago

While this might be a nice move for people living in France, I fail to see the relevance of this post at a global (or even European) level.

r00fus 15y ago
Perhaps it's to see how we can reproduce it here. Or why we can't (possible: over-litigious society + corrupt judiciary).
- stewbrew 15y ago
  I have no idea what you are referring to.

gcp 15y ago

Is this the same company that "reinvented" the GPL by claiming that as you "rent" your modem (chock-full of GPL software) from them, they are not distributing anything and they do not have to abide by the GPL? (Feel free to correct me if they have changed their stance)

obtu 15y ago
They have fixed that recently: http://floss.freebox.fr/ http://floss.freebox.fr/ Here's the press release from FSF France (in French): http://fsffrance.org/news/article2011-09-14.fr.html http://fsffrance.org/news/article2011-09-14.fr.html

sp332 15y ago

How can you get 28 Mbit/s over DSL? I'm only 2 miles from my DSLAM and I can't get more than 1.5 Mbit/s.

masklinn 15y ago
It's "up to" 28Mb. But technically it's called G.992.5, colloquially known as "ADSL2+"[0]. You need a capable DSLAM and to be close to it, and you need good-quality phone lines. Distance-wise, we're talking about 1km for max throughput (0.6m), 2m gives a maximum of ~8Mb/s on ADSL2+ (may be above with very good lines providing little attenuation). At 1.5Mb, either you're on 1.5Mb ADSL to start with, or you have fairly crummy lines between you and your DSLAM. You should check the attenuation. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADSL2%2B http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADSL2%2B

goodweeds 15y ago

Sounds somewhat like a rip-off of republicwireless.com

toomuchtodo 15y ago
Republicwireless is beholden to Sprint for the cellular side, and handles the Wifi/termination with Amazon AWS and their Bandwidth.com hardware (Republic/Bandwidth are the same org). Free owns more of the infrastructure; they're not ripping off Republic, just doing what Republic is doing better.

goodweeds 15y ago

Sounds somewhat like a rip-off of republicwireless.com

blahedo 15y ago

This is brilliant: "For example, Free.fr used the set-top box for automatically sharing a portion of one’s broadband connection via Wi-Fi with other Free.fr customers."

jtheory 15y ago
That's not "new", anymore -- SFR and Orange do the same as well now. But yes, it's a great idea. As the owner of the set-top box, you're allowed to configure it to disable that, but virtually no one does -- because the usage from outside is always fairly minimal (but when you're traveling it can really come in handy).

jtheory 15y ago

Here's the part that really piqued my interest: This Free.Fr free Wi-Fi network is going to play a pivotal role in the soon-to-be-launched service, which will be using 42 Mbps HSPA+ technology. The company has built a network of 15,000 macrocells, but those 5 million “nano cells” are going to be the key difference maker, Niel points out. Free.fr’s newer set-top boxes will have built-in femtocells. I live in a rural part of France, and my village sits in a mobile signal dead zone. My mobile phone only gets reception up in the attic of my house (0 bars, otherwise, usually), or I can go outside and walk a half km to make a (poor quality) call. I do have DSL, though... is this (above) finally going to give me mobile reception, through a set-top box? (Please please please?)