Free brings Canal into its latest Freebox Ultra

As always with Xavier Niel, decorum was carefully thought out and there were numerous barbs towards the competitors. From Iliad's headquarters in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, the billionaire presented his new internet box, the Freebox Ultra, this Tuesday morning. After several days of “teasing” orchestrated on social networks, including by Xavier Niel himself, the announcement was expected.

According to Free, the product includes the best current connectivity standards on the market, with symmetrical upstream and downstream speeds of up to 8 gigabits/second, as well as the use of Wi-Fi 7, the latest standard currently available. . Free claims to be the first operator in the world to launch Wi-Fi 7 on a large scale. “It’s the most powerful offer on the market,” said the general manager of Free, Nicolas Thomas, during a video presentation. Speeds will be higher, latency will be reduced, including in very dense areas, Free promises. The Wi-Fi repeater, which extends home network coverage, will also be equipped with Wi-Fi 7.

More powerful, the box is also more economical. Two modes - Eco-Wifi and total standby - allow in the first case to limit the use of the box according to uses while maintaining a high level of performance, and in the second to reduce the consumption of the product up to 95% when the user leaves home or does not need to use their box. Free claims a minimum lifespan of 10 years for its product.

Beyond these technical characteristics, Xavier Niel's group also knew it was waiting for the content offered in the subscription, set at 49.99 euros per month, and 59.99 euros per month after one year. The previous box already offered a bouquet of video-on-demand services including Netflix, Prime Video, TV by Canal (bouquet of 50 free channels) as well as the “in-house” services of Free, OQEE by Free (280 free channels), Free Ligue 1 (video summaries and goals of championship matches) and OQEE Ciné (catalog of 500 films).

Free went even further this Tuesday by announcing that Disney, Universal, and especially the encrypted channel Canal en direct will be added to this offer. Questioned by Le Figaro, neither Nicolas Thomas nor Maxime Saada, chairman of the board of directors of the Canal group and present this Tuesday morning at Iliad, wished to comment on the financial conditions of this exclusive agreement, nor its duration. This was nevertheless concluded for several years.

With this offer, has Xavier Niel resolved the thorny issue of the fragmentation of video-on-demand platforms? Netflix, Prime Video, Disney...the subscription to each of these VOD services constitutes a heavy expense for consumers. Cleverly, the billionaire did not hesitate during the presentation of the box to take out the calculator by putting together what each of the subscriptions cost individually. According to his calculations, the content alone represents an expense of 83 euros per month, to which must be added the price of the premium internet subscription, which he sets on average at 58 euros among the competition.

With its offer of 50 euros per month for the first year and 60 euros thereafter, without commitment, Free claims to offer an offer three times cheaper. An offer at 40 euros per month, called Essential, offers the connectivity performance of the box, but without the content.

In the context of galloping inflation in recent months, Free is once again playing the purchasing power card with competitive offers, given the wealth of associated content. A profitable strategy. Since the start of the year, the operator has been a leader in recruiting new subscribers, with 324,000 (mobile landlines) in the third quarter alone. Turnover jumped 9.5%, the strongest quarterly growth in nine years.