Free Mobile takes lead in France's true 5G Standalone rollout

An Opensignal analysis of European mobile networks found that Free Mobile is the only French operator delivering substantial 5G Standalone (SA) service. In France, Free’s subscribers spend 14.1% of their connection time on SA 5G, far ahead of Bouygues Telecom (0.7%) and SFR and Orange (both 0.5%). Across Europe, SA 5G accounts for just 1.8% of total 5G usage, highlighting a gap between marketed 5G and the underlying infrastructure.

Free’s SA deployment provides a 32.4% reduction in latency and a 26.7% increase in average download speed, reaching about 200 Mb/s. A separate Opensignal study published in November 2025 ranked Bouygues Telecom as the overall best mobile experience in Europe, while Free topped the list for pure 5G quality.

The findings suggest that Free Mobile’s aggressive rollout of true 5G offers a noticeably better user experience, whereas rivals largely rely on non‑standalone 5G built on legacy 4G cores.