With Free, France shows the US what an open mobile market should be

If you hadn't noticed, T-Mobile has been on a rampage lately in the US. It has offered cheaper contract-free plans, paid users cold hard cash to switch, and generally crashed other carriers' parties. The result has been a wave of new customers for T-Mobile and cheaper, me-too plans from AT&T and Verizon -- all a boon to US consumers. But over in France, an alternate-reality version of this scenario has been playing out. Until recently, old guard carriers like Orange and SFR have trundled along, milking customers while stifling innovation. Then, trampling over them on a white horse, came a Bizarro T-Mobile carrier called Free Mobile. It's been a far greater competitive threat than T-Mo in the US and, thanks to its radical plans, France has become a wireless utopia with some of the cheapest rates in the world.

Let's backtrack a bit to the bad old days of mobile in France, circa late 2011. The market was lorded over by Orange (the largest carrier with a 41 percent share), SFR and Bouygues Telecom. At that time, it was hard to find a plan under 40 euros (about $55) with 1GB of data or more. As shown here, when the iPhone 4S came out, a SIM-only contract could be had on SFR for 37 euros ($50) with 1GB of data, or 39 euros on Orange ($53). Calls weren't unlimited on any of those plans, and tethering was strictly a non-non. 4G was nowhere in sight.

View the Original article