This past February, Arcep a delivered a complete report on the conclusions of its investigation into: “Smartphones, voice assistants, tablets… Are devices the weak link in achieving an open internet?”. This publication came with a series of concrete recommendations for ensuring an open internet, right up to access devices, to protect users’ freedom of choice.
To coincide with its participation in the Internet Governance Forum, Arcep published a fact sheet for consumers on its website (in French), to increase their awareness of the issue of open devices, along with two tutorials to put some of the recommendations contained in its report into practice:
How can I customise my smartphone? (in French)
Applications, search engines, app stores… that are installed by default. Smartphones’ operating system tends to make a number of choices for you. Do you want to customise your smartphone to match your own preferences? This tutorial takes you step by step through the configuration of your smartphone, to be able to take advantage of all of the services and content available in the marketplace, but also to uncover any built-in restrictions that may be hampering your freedom of choice.
Switching smartphones: what tools can I use to transfer my data? (in French)
The difficulties that users encounter when trying to transfer their data and content from their old phone to a new one, and especially when switching to a new operating system (OS), can be enough to discourage them from switching environments. There are, however, several initiatives designed to make it easy for you to transfer the data stored on your device.
To help it continue to update and improve these tutorials, Arcep is calling on users to share their comments and suggestions with the team in charge: terminaux(@)arcep.fr.
Live presentations of the procedures were given at Arcep’s stand at the Internet Governance Forum, from Monday 12 to Wednesday 14 November.
Associated documents
- Arcep' report “Smartphones, voice assistants, tablets… Are devices the weak link in achieving an open internet?”
- Illustrated summary « Smartphones, voice assistants, tablets… Are devices the weak link in achieving an open internet?”
- Arcep’s 11 proposals for guaranteeing an open internet, to give users back their freedom of choice
- “Gafa are ruling our smartphones. Let’s take back control!” Editorial by Arcep Chair, Sébastien Soriano, in L'OBS (13 February 2018) - In French