Free does it again. Nearly two years after having upset the mobile market with its 3G offer, it has recreated the surprise in 4G. While its competitors plan to “recreate value” with their mobile broadband subscriptions, the troublemaker of the French telecom market now includes 4G in its current offers without changing its prices.

Suddenly, the Free package, which the “low cost” brands of Orange, SFR and Bouygues Telecom had equaled, regained a net interest. If we know how to see clearly.

• The cheapest 4G offer . The Free plan with 4G is undoubtedly the most economical on the market. These offers start at 28.99 euros per month at NRJ Mobile, 29.99 euros at Bouygues Telecom or 30.99 euros per month at Orange. To see more aggressive rates, it will be necessary to wait for the 4G offer at 19.99 euros per month from Virgin Mobile promised for next spring. Or wait for a replica to arrive from B&You (Bouygues Telecom) or another "low cost" operator brand.

• The most generous subscription . Free offers no less than 20 gigabytes of download in 4G (and still 3 GB in 3G). It is considerable. The cheapest plans from other operators usually contain between 1 and 3 GB of data. Virgin Mobile's future offer is announced with 5 GB of download, still four times less than Free Mobile. With the Free quota, it is possible to watch around twenty films per month in standard quality. Until now Bouygues Telecom was in the best position, with its 16 GB offer, billed at 59.99 euros per month.

• No additional service . Free has not imagined any additional service for its 4G subscribers. The other operators have made a habit of including a whole series of them. Orange and SFR, for example, offer two and four SIM cards respectively to take advantage of mobile broadband Internet on a smartphone and a tablet. These packages are also often associated with remote storage spaces, in the cloud, or television packages.

• Reduced coverage in major cities . Free has activated 700 4G antennas. They allow it to serve 1000 municipalities, but we do not know the percentage of the population concerned. Orange claims to cover 50% of the population with 4,000 sites, and Bouygues Telecom, 63% with 5,600 antennas. When consulting the coverage map put online by the operator, we notice that only the big cities are covered, and not always in full. Historical centers, where it is more complicated to install antennas, are often ignored. "Coverage can vary from simple to triple depending on the operator", reminded Tuesday the Minister Delegate for Consumer Affairs, Benoît Hamon, and his colleague in charge of the digital economy, Fleur Pellerin.

• Good reception outside buildings . Free's 4G runs on the 2.6 GHz band, which is called high frequencies. Many antennas are needed to cover the territory with this type of frequency, and penetration into buildings is not optimal. The other three operators have a license to deploy 4G in the 800 MHz band, qualified as golden frequencies. Free will still have to wait several months before having a roaming agreement with SFR in this band, which means that its network will take time to deploy in the countryside.

Regarding speeds, “the wide frequency band available to Free in 4G also allows it to offer its subscribers the highest theoretical maximum speed: up to 150 Mbit/s”, indicates the operator. The first tests will make it possible to know more within a few days on the quality of the network. The first tests listed by the specialized site Univers Freebox are considered “very encouraging”.

• A laptop that probably needs to be changed . 4G requires a compatible phone. At its launch, Free was able to count on the fleet of smartphones purchased from other operators that it was possible to unlock, most often at no additional cost. Subscribers who have subscribed to a 4G package with competitors are this time at the very beginning of their commitment. Free has only 10,000 4G-compatible smartphones in circulation on its network, out of seven million SIMs, one of them estimates. For subscribers, the cheapest 4G phone sold by Free is 227 euros.