Orange, Bouygues and SFR will switch on their new mobile networks on Friday

Paris will finally switch to ultra high speed mobile. The three incumbent telecom operators, Orange, Bouygues Telecom and SFR, will deploy 5G in the capital by commissioning their latest generation mobile networks on Friday March 19. This announcement was made Thursday, after a last meeting with the town hall, putting an end to a long political soap opera.

Orange and SFR, the first to have formalized the launch of their 5G at the end of the morning, announced that they wanted to activate it exclusively on the 3.5 GHz frequency band, that “which offers the best speeds”. Bouygues followed in the footsteps of its competitors at midday while Free Mobile, the fourth operator, has not yet communicated a schedule.

A new charter governing the deployment of 5G in the capital was validated by the city council in early March, several months after the citizens’ conference organized by the municipality at the end of December. The signing of this charter at the start of the week by the four operators finally gave the green light to the commercial launch of this latest generation network in Paris.

The capital will therefore join around twenty other large cities such as Marseille, Lyon and Bordeaux, where 5G has already been launched in recent months, despite local reluctance. IIt is not up to the mayors, but to the State, to decide on this deployment, as decided by the Council of State at the end of 2020.

Cities like Lille have announced that they are in favor of a moratorium until the publication, scheduled for the spring, of a report from the National Health Security Agency (ANSES), in particular to assess the possible consequences of the deployment of the 5G on the environment and health.