Les antennes de Free Mobile continuent de déranger. Les rêves de grandeur de Xavier Niel, Enquête. Xavier Niel débriefe pour FrenchWeb le lancement de Free Mobile. The Man Who Set France Free - Tech Europe. AFP/Getty Images Niel: Free is the culmination of a decade of lobbying PARIS—Mobile phone prices rarely incite emotion. But on Tuesday when French billionaire Xavier Niel presented his company’s new mobile phone offer there was a lump in his throat. The launch of Iliad’s Free Mobile cut price contract, which starts at €2 a month, is likely to shake up France’s mobile market and could well influence the way that future mobile offers are shaped across the continent. For Mr. In France the 44-year-old has successfully leveraged his biggest asset: his scarcity. Unlike many of his peers, Mr. In the late 1990s Mr. The success of the ensuing offer established him as one of France’s business heavyweights and something of a consumer champion. Delving into the mobile business however is his biggest gamble to date.
On Tuesday Mr. By the end of the show emotion was getting the better of Mr. It’s unclear what Mr. How France’s Free will reinvent mobile. Updated: Xavier Niel, the maverick founder of Iliad, the company behind Free.fr broadband service, is about to redefine the mobile landscape, perhaps as early as tomorrow, when he launches the much-talked about Free Mobile. In doing so, he will redefine what the idea of a carrier in the 21st century is, thanks to a radical new approach. Utilizing a blend of Wi-Fi, HSPA+ 3G, femtocells and its all-fiber backbone, Free will offer unlimited voice, texting and data over the mobile networks; just bring your own iPhone.
But before I get into the details of his new company, let me back up and tell you about Iliad and Free.fr. Set it Free.fr In Dec. 2007, while attending Le Web in Paris, I snuck out to visit Niel, the man behind Iliad, a Paris-based phone service that owned many entities including its most well-known offering: Free.fr, a broadband service that offered phone (VoIP), video (IPTV) and broadband for a simple flat monthly fee.
Going mobile And now the mobile service is ready. [Free Mobile] Les réactions de Jacques-Antoine Granjon et Marc Simoncini.