The Texto SMS Gratuit team
28 July 2026 · 8 min read
On 24 July 2026, Arcep published the 2026 edition of its annual survey on the quality of fixed and mobile internet access in metropolitan France. It is the most anticipated exercise of the year for operators and informed consumers: more than 3 million measurements taken in real conditions, in large cities, rural areas, transport networks and homes, on Orange, Free, SFR and Bouygues Telecom networks, with an identical protocol for all. The verdict is unsurprising on fibre — Orange and Free take the top spots — but with one real surprise on 5G: Bouygues Telecom rejoins the podium, and satellite internet becomes for the first time a defensible choice outside fibre zones. Breakdown of a barometer that is genuinely shifting the lines.
What the Arcep QoS barometer actually measures
The survey does not just rely on customer perception (that is the role of the satisfaction observatory, published separately): it measures the technical quality of service on the basis of active and passive tests performed by an independent provider. The main indicators are:
- Downlink speed (in Mbit/s) on web pages, streaming and downloads.
- Uplink speed (upload) and latency (response time, critical for gaming and video conferencing).
- Success rate of web pages, quality of web browsing (3G/4G/5G).
- Quality of video streaming (YouTube, Netflix) in HD and 4K.
- Quality of voice over IP (VoLTE, VoWiFi) and SMS over IP.
- In-home Wi-Fi performance.
Tests are run on operator-supplied terminals (SIM cards provided to panellists), with identical reference smartphones for Orange, Free, SFR and Bouygues. This removes hardware-related gaps and isolates network performance.
Fibre: Orange confirms, Free confirms too
On fixed fibre optic access (FttH), the 2026 ranking is stable compared to 2025, but with shrinking gaps.
| Operator | Average downlink speed | Average latency | Browsing success rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Orange | ≈ 940 Mbit/s | 8 ms | 99.4% |
| Free | ≈ 920 Mbit/s | 9 ms | 99.2% |
| Bouygues Telecom | ≈ 870 Mbit/s | 11 ms | 98.7% |
| SFR | ≈ 830 Mbit/s | 13 ms | 98.2% |
Orange keeps the pole position on almost every technical indicator: near-gigabit downlink, lowest latency, near-perfect success rate. Free stays its solid runner-up and even widens the gap with SFR and Bouygues, especially on "fibre-only" plans (no TV, no landline phone), where it claims to control the whole technical chain. Bouygues Telecom and SFR are improving but still lag on latency — a crucial indicator for remote work, online gaming and video conferencing.
The gap also shows up in throughput stability over time: Orange delivers the lowest variance, meaning throughput does not collapse at peak hours, a point confirmed for example by the detailed ANFR report on the 5G observatory we analysed recently in our article on the ANFR 5G observatory in France in 2026.
5G and 4G: Bouygues strikes back
On mobile, the landscape is more contested. The 2026 barometer confirms that 5G delivers on its promises, but reveals a notable shift: Bouygues Telecom, long behind on 5G standalone (the "real" 5G, no longer relying on 4G), is back in the match.
| Operator | Average downlink speed (5G) | 5G latency | 5G population coverage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Orange | ≈ 320 Mbit/s | 16 ms | ≈ 78% |
| Free | ≈ 305 Mbit/s | 18 ms | ≈ 81% |
| Bouygues Telecom | ≈ 280 Mbit/s | 19 ms | ≈ 74% |
| SFR | ≈ 240 Mbit/s | 22 ms | ≈ 70% |
Free keeps the edge on territorial coverage thanks to its 4G roaming agreement with Orange (see our article on the decline of SMS roaming in France in 2026 for details on roaming agreements and their impact on coverage), while Orange stays ahead on raw speed. Bouygues Telecom, which accelerated its 5G standalone rollouts since the end of 2025, is now hot on Free's heels on speed and pulling away from SFR. The shift is partly explained by the massive activation of the 3.5 GHz band on urban sites and denser antenna coverage in commercial areas.
Uplink, long a weak point of French mobile networks, is improving across all four operators: all now exceed 30 Mbit/s on average on 5G, up from 18 Mbit/s in 2024. Good news for content creators, video conferences and video calls from a smartphone on the move.
Satellite internet: the silent breakthrough
The real surprise of the 2026 edition is satellite internet (Starlink, OneWeb, Konnect). For the first time in the Arcep barometer, satellite is measured as a standalone operator, and the results beat expectations:
- Average downlink speed: 180 Mbit/s (up 60% from 2024).
- Latency: 38 ms (vs. 75 ms in 2024), thanks to low Earth orbit (LEO) constellations from Starlink and OneWeb.
- Browsing success rate: 96.8%.
Latency is still higher than fibre (8–13 ms) but is now compatible with video conferencing and voice over IP for the first time. For the 600,000 French households not yet eligible for fibre, this is a game changer. Arcep reminds that satellite remains more expensive (€40–60/month) and more sensitive to weather, but that it finally closes the digital divide in the most remote areas.
Photo: Unsplash — satellite internet now delivers an average 180 Mbit/s, enough for video conferencing and voice over IP.
In-home Wi-Fi: the weak link for every operator
Arcep says it plainly: in-home Wi-Fi is the poor relation of the quality chain. Whatever the box, performance collapses as soon as you move a few metres away, as soon as a load-bearing wall separates the living room from the office, or as soon as a neighbour floods the channel with their own network.
- Average Wi-Fi speed in the main room: 70% of the wired speed.
- Wi-Fi speed in a remote room: 30% to 40% of the wired speed.
- Wi-Fi latency: two to three times the Ethernet latency.
Arcep recommends three practices: wire in Ethernet the fixed devices (TV, console, desktop PC), use a mesh router (Netgear Orbi, Google Nest Wi-Fi, Freebox Delta) for large homes, and separate the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands on older devices. Operator boxes all now support Wi-Fi 6E and even Wi-Fi 7 — but your smartphone or PC has to follow.
Voice and SMS quality: a deserved thumbs-up
The survey also dedicates a section to voice over IP (VoLTE) and SMS over IP, two technologies that have replaced voice and SMS on the 2G/3G networks that are now being switched off. The four operators get very close scores:
- VoLTE call success rate: 99.6% to 99.9% depending on the operator.
- SMS reception rate: 99.9% across all networks.
- Voice quality (MOS, mean opinion score): above 4.2/5 for all four operators.
This is an important confirmation: the end of the copper network by 2030 (see our article on the end of the copper network and ADSL in 2026) will not degrade call and SMS quality, since they already mostly travel over 4G/5G mobile networks. For users who need to send a free SMS without registration, our sending form remains accessible to everyone and continues to use the most performant VoIP/SMS gateways on the market.
What to remember from the 2026 barometer
- Fibre: Orange undisputed leader (940 Mbit/s, 8 ms latency), Free a strong runner-up, Bouygues and SFR lagging but improving.
- 5G: Orange and Free neck-and-neck on speed, Free leading on coverage, Bouygues Telecom striking back and hot on Free's heels.
- 4G: coverage remains excellent (99.5% of the population), with continued efforts on rural areas through the "New deal mobile" (see our article on the New deal mobile and 4G white zones in France in 2026).
- Satellite: dramatic breakthrough (180 Mbit/s, 38 ms latency), finally viable for video conferencing and voice over IP.
- In-home Wi-Fi: the weak link, with throughput divided by 2 to 3 as soon as you move away from the box.
- Voice and SMS over IP: excellent quality on all networks, the post-copper transition is a success.
To track the evolution of service quality in France, Arcep publishes this barometer every year, as well as an observatory of the voice and SMS coverage maps that we presented in our article on the Arcep voice and SMS coverage maps in 2026. For any question, you can consult our FAQ, legal notice or contact us.
