It took a few months: Free (owned by Xavier Niel, also an individual shareholder of the group) The world) beats competing operators to the punch by launching its “standalone” 5G general public offering (GPO). This is available “Now and at no additional cost for subscribers of the Free 5G Package,” the company warns in a press release dated Wednesday, September 18.
This second-generation technology consists of placing new “tubes” behind the 5G antennas instead of using the old 4G infrastructure. This improvement mainly reduces the waiting time between the moment we consult the Internet and the moment we receive a response, which is what we call latency.
This improvement will be difficult to notice when waiting for a web page or Internet video to load. But some users may experience an improvement in competitive online gaming: the appearance of lagging may be reduced.
And if virtual reality (VR) takes off, standalone technology could make headsets lighter, allowing remote computers to handle the graphical calculations, which are then transmitted to the headset via 5G with very low latency. The problem of lag between motion and image is a very sensitive one in VR, as latency tends to cause dizziness and stomach aches.
The competition will arrive in the coming months.
When will competing operators roll out their standalone 5G offering? Asked by The worldSFR remains unclear: “For the general public, as soon as the uses with compatible smartphones are developed, we will be able to offer the best 5G SA coverage. » Bouygues says it is planning a general launch within a few months, as is Orange.
By the way, the latter slips World A quick note on Free, highlighting the smaller size of its network of second-generation 5G-compatible antennas. The standalone technology currently only works with antennas on 3.5 GHz frequencies, but Free only has 7,000 of them, compared to Orange’s 10,000-plus. This figure, compared to the 20,000 antennas Free uses to cover the territory, means that many geographic areas will not benefit from second-generation 5G.
Orange, SFR and Bouygues Telecom are in charge of moderating the announcement of Free: they all recall having already marketed an independent 5G offer, but intended for professionals (from July 2023 according to Orange, December 2023 according to SFR and February 2024 according to Bouygues). telecoms). But this offer does not include national coverage: independent 5G is activated antenna by antenna, generally around the customer’s factory. Orange used it in particular during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, along the Seine and in several stadiums.
For businesses, standalone 5G appears to have more varied and less anecdotal benefits than for the general public, such as the ability to connect a larger number of devices and sensors (in an automated factory, for example). Or the possibility of reserving part of the debit for a specific customer. The low latency of standalone 5G could also be used for transportation, allowing remote control of vehicles or drones at higher speeds.
In the past, Martin Bouygues, then president and CEO of the group, told tech outlet ZDNet: “Only from 2023 will the maturity of 5G and the arrival of a second phase of equipment allow us to consider new uses, especially industrial ones.” A year late, the time has come: businesses and the general public will soon be able to judge 5G in full use of its means. However, that is only if you have a compatible smartphone, which is far from being the case for all models at the moment, as we can see from the list provided by Free. For example, no iPhone is currently compatible with 5G SA.
