ARCEP publishes the results of two service quality evaluation surveys for mobile networks (voice and data) conducted in Metropolitan France in 2007

Paris, 22 November 2007

For the tenth consecutive year, in conjunction with the three mobile operators, ARCEP has conducted service quality evaluations of mobile networks in Metropolitan France, as it can be perceived by the operators’ customers on a daily basis.

The 2007 surveys also tested the 3G mobile networks opened by Orange France and SFR in late 2004.

• Two surveys were conducted:

The first survey measured the service quality of voice telephony; it was conducted by the Directique firm. The second covered data services and was conducted by the Assystem firm.

Over 28 000 telephone calls were made in cities of over 20 000 inhabitants, on board commuter trains and TGV high-speed trains, and on highways as a passenger in a vehicle. Over 3 000 SMS and MMS were sent, 1 500 WAP and I-mode browsing sessions held, 5 000 files transferred and 3 300 videophone calls made in the 12 cities in France with over 400 000 inhabitants.

• Excellent voice and SMS service quality

These surveys confirm the excellent service quality of voice and SMS, as well as improvement in voice indicators in cities with over 400 000 inhabitants and on major highways. Services for sending photos using multimedia messaging (MMS and i-mode mail) and videophony showed satisfactory results.

• 3G networks were tested for the first time

File downloading tests showed the real performance of 3G networks and its HSDPA developments during the summer of 2007, when commercial offers were limited to the theoretical speed of 1.8 Mbit/s. These tests conducted in cities with over 400 000 inhabitants showed that the speeds observed for downloading 5 MB files on 3G networks reached 1.4 Mbit/s for the fastest, and that average downloading speeds on the networks of operators having deployed 3G was 887 kbit/s for downloading. And for uploading, the fastest speeds were 340 kbit/s when sending 1 Mb files.

Readers are invited to consult the description of the technical conditions of each survey before considering the results. This type of survey is part of ARCEP’s action plan for informing consumers on the mobile telephony market.