en.Wedoany.com Reported - Orange France has rolled out a mobile network reinforcement plan ahead of the summer tourist season to address data traffic surges that are three times higher than spring levels in coastal areas. Nicolas Drouillet, the operator's Technical Director, disclosed on LinkedIn that over 2 million new customers and nearly 100,000 foreign tourists join the Orange network during this period each year, prompting the team to begin planning months in advance.
To alleviate network congestion, Orange has deployed 24 mobile solutions, including temporary base stations and vehicle-mounted devices, to enhance the coverage of existing fixed base stations. The technical team has also completed over 200 reconfiguration operations to increase site capacity and has deployed nearly 30 new mobile sites since the start of summer. Nicolas Drouillet stated that 70% of coastal mobile sites now support 5G. A dedicated technical team continuously monitors sites affected by seasonal traffic, with enhanced tracking of 500 priority sites to ensure network readiness at all times.
According to the latest observation station data released by the French National Frequency Agency (ANFR) on July 1, 2026, Orange leads the country in the number of 4G sites, with 32,840 available sites. Bouygues Telecom ranks second with 31,807 sites, while Free Mobile and SFR have 31,226 and 30,805 sites, respectively. In terms of 5G, Free Mobile leads with 23,214 sites, ahead of Orange (18,030) and Bouygues Telecom (18,892). In the core 3.5 GHz band, Orange maintains its lead with 14,310 sites, surpassing Bouygues Telecom (11,262), Free Mobile (11,209), and SFR (10,751). The operator also operates 13,454 sites in the 700 MHz band and 3,522 sites in the 2.1 GHz band, both primarily used to expand geographic coverage.
On June 29, 2026, a fault caused mobile and fixed network outages for several hours for some Orange and Sosh users. On July 1, the network experienced another fault, though the official scope of its impact has not been confirmed.
Orange plans to carry out several activities during the summer. Starting July 1, the operator is offering free eSIMs at 26 music festivals for users to test its network, limited to 50,000 participants until September 30. At five of these festivals, free charging and Wi-Fi connection areas of 50 square meters each have been set up.
