Euro 2016: Free and Orange blur on coverage of soccer stadiums – Le Figaro

INFO LE FIGARO – Due to a dispute in Bordeaux, the beautiful agreement between the four operators to provide mobile coverage of the ten stages of the competition of football has the lead in the wing <. / p>

The story was beautiful nonetheless. Bouygues Telecom, Orange, SFR and Free work together to ensure the best network coverage possible in football fans gathered in stadiums during Euro 2016. But the agreement begins to crack after Free decided to back-pedal. The operator of Xavier Niel does not want to participate in financing the mobile infrastructure for the stadium in Bordeaux. He even asked Orange reimbursement of amounts already paid, as revealed in Le Figaro a close case. Consequently, Free guest attending the matches of Euro inside the Matmut-Atlantic may not be able to call from the stage or tweeter, texting, Facebook messages … In short, everything that implies a connection to a wireless network.

in the beginning of the turnaround of Free, rent a problem. The owners or dealers stadiums charge to rental operators to install their infrastructure there. That of Bordeaux has decided to increase the rent by twelve. The change was accepted by the three competitors of Free, but not by him. He decided to disengage from Bordeaux stadium.

The four operators had agreed last year to invest in common infrastructure and share the costs. In this device, they also distributed the industrial production operations. Orange is responsible for deploying the network in six of the ten stadiums that will host the competition (including Bordeaux), Bouygues Telecom and SFR share the other four. One of the fears is that Free Orange decided to apply the same strategy to other stages of the competition, leaving a slate of several million euros to the incumbent.

Meanwhile, the representatives explained to the Free Bordeaux City Hall that their customers could benefit from the Orange roaming the stage, as in the areas of France where it has no network. However, the incumbent could deprive Free roaming the stage while the Free Mobile network alone is not sufficient to guarantee connection to its customers.